Episodes is a television sitcom created by David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik and produced by Hat Trick Productions.

[4] Episodes has received positive reviews from critics,[5][6] with specific praise being given to the performances of stars Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, and LeBlanc.

Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) Lincoln win yet another BAFTA Award for their successful British sitcom, Lyman's Boys.

Network president Merc Lapidus (John Pankow) and his second-in-command/paramour Carol Rance (Kathleen Rose Perkins) convince the couple to move to Los Angeles to remake their series for an American audience.

However, tensions flare between Matt and Beverly when he suggests that Morning's character be straight rather than a lesbian--a move Sean ultimately supports in order for the story to have room to grow.

During the airing of the episode, Matt receives a handjob with Merc's blind wife Jamie (Genevieve O'Reilly) and begins an affair with her.

Citing audience surveys, the network suggests that Sean and Beverly rework the scripts to focus less on Matt and more on his teenage co-stars.

Matt is furious and threatens to quit but relents when Beverly tells him that the show is the only thing giving her a chance at reuniting with Sean.

Carol wants to preserve her romantic relationship with Merc so she tells him that his blind wife is having an affair with Matt, leading to a violent fisticuffs between the two men.

He begs Sean and Beverly to kill him off the show, but they refuse once they discover that the script is penned by their obnoxious former assistant Andrew Lesley (Oliver Kieran-Jones).

As Matt negotiates for a role in the NBC pilot, Sean and Beverly begin preparing to return home when an agent, Eileen Jaffee (Andrea Rosen), remembers an old script of theirs titled The Opposite of Us.

Sean receives a visit from his old writing partner Tim Whittick (Bruce Mackinnon) who suggests that he was a co-author of the original script.

After suspecting that she's being cheated on, Helen fires Carol and forces Sean and Beverly to work on The Opposite of Us with Tim serving as showrunner.

He asks Sean and Beverly to pen the new script; with the production on Opposite of Us becoming increasingly unbearable, they gleefully quit and agree to work with Matt on a new show.

After throwing around several ideas, the passing of Matt's father (Alex Rocco) inspires them to write a drama about a conflicted father-son relationship.

[9] Sean and Beverly Lincoln were played by Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig, who previously co-starred in the British sitcom Green Wing (2004–2007).

[9] Thomas Haden Church was also to have a role in the series as Merc Lapidus, the American television executive who commissions the remake, but he left due to scheduling conflicts,[10] and was replaced by John Pankow.

Although the majority of the show was set in Los Angeles, the first season was mainly filmed in the UK, including the 103-room mansion Updown Court that Sean and Beverly Lincoln briefly stayed in.

"[15] A Boston Herald review by Mark A. Perigard was lukewarm; he said he feared that the show would never achieve a broad audience,[16] and David Wiegand from the San Francisco Chronicle praised the performances of the actors but felt that the series simply was not funny.

On one side you have LeBlanc, who handles the big laughs and the broader humor, and does it so well, it serves as a reminder that he was under-appreciated during his years on Friends."

"[26][27] On the Firewall & Iceberg podcast Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg commented on the second season, saying that the "self-congratulatory, obvious" show that is "oddly tone-deaf about the business that it was trying to satirize" is "not about anything" and "as a result is better for it," but is still "groaningly unfunny".

"[30] Brian Lowry of Variety gave the season a lukewarm review, praising Matt LeBlanc's performance, writing: "Episodes remains distinguished, mostly, by Matt LeBlanc's gameness in playing a jaundiced, utterly self-absorbed version of himself, the classic stereotype of a sitcom star with an oversized ego.".

Club gave the season a "C+" grade and a mixed review, writing: "It's turned out to be a fairly tired satire of Hollywood, one that's stayed yoked to its dubious premise.

Portraying an exaggerated version of his on-screen persona, LeBlanc’s sweet, sex-obsessed shallowness is all that's required, but Mangan – a terrific comic actor – seems constantly to be toying with a smirk, devaluing some of the emotional currency you sense Episodes is striving for.