Matt LeBlanc tiptoes towards middle age

Episodes, by Friends co-creator and writer David Crane - allows Matt LeBlanc to poke rip-roarious fun at what happens to household names like himself who, thanks to a show's stellar success, are automatically greenlit for comedy projects everywhere, whether the writers and crew want them or not.

Episodes Series 4 review

Episodes has clearly had its day. Presumably the fact that it is returning for a fifth series owes itself to the fact that it has been far better received in the US than it has in the UK.

Radio Times review

Because Jeffrey Klarik and David Crane have created such a host of fabulous supporting characters over the four series of Episodes, Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig's bemused-Brits-in-LA Sean and Beverly can take a back seat in this hilarious season finale and let the carnage unfold around them.

The Matt/Merc feud reaches an exquisitely absurd climax on the set of the LeBlanc-fronted new game show The Box (is it me or is the format for this actually quite good?). And Helen Basch's envious suspicions about her girlfriend Carol also come to a head in a rollicking 30 minutes that shows just how deftly plotted Klarik and Crane's writing is. Thank the showbiz gods there will be another series. Or as Matt might put it: "Bring on the bugs!"

Series four of Episodes is the best yet

As the curtain falls on the fourth series of the Matt LeBlanc, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan comedy, Ben Dowell says the show has never been better.

Episodes has been granted another series... but why?

There are series that become critical darlings but never attract a large enough audience to be viable. There are ones that the critics hate but the viewers adore. There are some that manage to score on both fronts, pleasing all of the people all of the time, and become runaway successes. And then there's the fourth type: those series few people really care about, yet which for some reason, just keep being recommissioned.

Episodes review

Now in its fourth series, the Anglo-American show-within-a-show has got looser, broader, dafter, ruder - and as unmissable as Matt LeBlanc's greatest hit.

Radio Times review

Jealous studio boss Helen Basch (Andrea Savage) hates Tamsin Greig's Beverly because she thinks she loves her girlfriend Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins). Helen also hates the oily Merc Lapidus so she sets him up to do a game show with his sworn enemy, the cash-strapped Matt LeBlanc. Matt's not talking to Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly either, because the Brit abroad writers snubbed his services for their hot new show.

Packed with brilliant lines, this is an eventful episode that shows how nimbly plotted this suave, assured, knowing, skilled and very funny comedy is - and the surprising directions it can take you. A joy.

Episodes, BBC2 - TV review: LeBlanc is the real draw

In his best Episodes, LeBlank is the cable-friendly counterpart to Curb Your Enthusiasm curmudgeon Larry David.

'Episodes' creators embark on DIY Emmy campaign

Feeling that their show is being outmuscled big time by rivals in the Emmy campaign, David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik decided to take things into their hands with an ad they scribbled on a white sheet of paper.

When Matt's dad is taken ill with chest pains, Bev and Sean find themselves somehow embroiled in the mess, which Matt's stepmother thinks has been brought on by the recent revelation that Matt now owes $8m to the IRS thanks to his previous dodgy accountant. Luckily, a few signed Friends photos - some scrawled by Bev and Sean - grease the wheels in the hospital. Meanwhile, Carol's fling with boss Helen is getting serious. They're on pet names already, and it's only been two weeks.