Matt LeBlanc
Matt LeBlanc is a pretty big jerk on Episodes, and not in the neurotic Larry David-on-Curb Your Enthusiasm-kind of way. In the Showtime comedy, LeBlanc plays himself as a lame-brained has-been — with a stinky Joey cologne line to match — but also a womanizer, bum dad, and most recently, the kind of guy who sleeps with his friend's wife without remorse.
It's a complicated if depressing alter ego to take on, and certainly one attention-grabbing way for the real-life LeBlanc to jump back into the spotlight following the 2006 failure of Joey. Executive producers David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik say that they didn't craft the part around the real LeBlanc, who in person is pleasant but serious, relaxed but not overly friendly. "Occasionally, he'll be playful, but he's not Joey," Klarik says.
Are the creators of Showtime's Episodes bitter? They don't think so!
"Fake Matt is...
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Stephen Mangan and Matt LeBlanc
The February 6 episode of Showtime's Episodes makes jokes about an issue that television comedy has long avoided: rape. The storyline finds Matt LeBlanc (playing an overly clueless version of himself) at a rape prevention benefit, struggling to uncork a bottle of wine — oblivious to the survivor onstage relating the story of her brutal attack. Wickedly funny or brazenly insensitive?
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Episodes
It's difficult to believe that the creators of Showtime's Episodes are not holding a grudge against network TV.
Their last series, the CBS sitcom The Class, was axed after one short season, and their follow-up comedy (for cable, natch) is nothing if not an indictment of how the worst broadcast shows get made, sometimes in spite of a great idea. Just take a gander at Episodes' fictional network honcho, a crass and careless tyrant who transforms an urbane British hit about the headmaster of an elite boys school into a broad comedy for American audiences starring Matt LeBlanc.
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Matt LeBlanc
Matt LeBlanc spent 12 years in Joey Tribbiani's shoes — first on the classic comedy Friends, then on its not-so-classic spin-off, Joey. But on January 9, the three-time Emmy nominee returns to TV in Showtime's Episodes as someone he's even more familiar with... Matt LeBlanc. Or at least a spoiled, morally bankrupt (and, ahem, very well-endowed) version of the actor, dreamed up for the biting Hollywood satire by cocreator (and former Friends producer) David Crane and his partner Jeffrey Klarik. LeBlanc, now 43 and father to 6-year-old Marina, sat down with TV Guide Magazine for a frank and funny chat about his new comedy, life away from the limelight and why he's opposed to a Friends reunion.
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Nikita
The chasm between cable and network programming loomed especially large on Thursday, Day 2 of the Television Critics Association presentations, as Showtime occupied the morning and the CW the afternoon. Never the twain shall meet, as Showtime unveiled a provocative array of shows that caters to the very adult, while the CW, whose focus is anything but, introduced a mere two-pack of new fall shows that rests safely if stylishly within the network's comfort zone of young female empowerment...
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Matt LeBlanc
After David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik watched their last series, The Class, flop on the networks, the creators swore off pitching to broadcast television.
That's why Episodes, the duo's new Showtime comedy starring Matt LeBlanc, paints a not so flattering portrait of the business behind making network TV shows.
The networks are "ruled by fear and panic," Crane said during Television Critics Association's fall TV previews on Thursday...
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Matt LeBlanc
Friends star Matt LeBlanc is coming back to the small screen.
LeBlanc, who last starred in the Friends spin-off Joey, will team with Friends co-creator David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik (The Class, Mad About You) for Episodes, a single-camera send-up of the TV business. The series focuses on a British couple whose hit show is turned into a dumbed-down American sitcom starring LeBlanc, who plays himself...
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Question: I just watched the season finale of The Class, and I loved it. I know that CBS still hasn't announced if it's canceling the show or not, but if it does, do you think there is a possibility for another network to pick it up? It was reported that all the networks put in a bid for the show during development season last year. Do you think either ABC or NBC will pick up the show if CBS cancels it, seeing that NBC aired David Crane's Friends and that the show averages at least eight million viewers every week, which, compared to ABC's comedies, is good enough to renew for a second season?
Answer: I addressed The Class' iffy situation at CBS in a Dispatch earlier this week, but in the larger picture, if CBS passes, no one's likely to come to the rescue. I guess I can't say often enough that such a move is beyond rare, and almost never occurs for a show that didn't exactly pop either in the ratings, in buzz or in the critical press. (I liked the show but still acknowledged that it
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For months, the thing about Heroes that bothered me most was Milo Ventimiglia’s hair: specifically, that dreaded dangling forelock Peter Petrelli kept playing with, as if in thrall to a fetish. I’ve long wanted the boy to get a haircut. But not like this!Quite the horrifying climax to the March cliff-hanger (no new episodes until April 23), as Sylar pinned that dupe Mohinder to the ceiling while slicing into Peter Petrelli’s skull to see why Peter ticks like Sylar, only less murderously. Blood drops from Peter’s forehead onto the floor, followed by that hank of hair. I cringed, then I cheered. Well done.The episode was a crackerjack thrill ride with one reversal after another. Simone rising from the dead? Shut up! It’s really Candice, the slinky shape-shifter! Mrs. Bennet betraying her hubby, in cahoots with The Company? Shut up! It’s really Candice, the slinky shape-shifter! What fun.By the way, I love how the writers have evolved HRG from sinister man...
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To me, this episode of The Class was right up there with the stripper pole as the funniest episode of the season. The set-up was a bit long and really, the whole Kat dating this mystery man story line better lead to something good because if it doesn't, I would have rather seen 10 more minutes of "hitting it." But, once again Richie and Lina stole the show. I can't believe all of the mean things Fern said to Richie about his sexual prowess. She told him she was "wildly under whelmed," and on multiple occasions he heard "stop that!" I love when Richie was talking to Duncan about Fern and told him that sometimes during sex she would ask, "Are you going to call the plumber or am I? And then sometimes she'd call the plumber." I can't believe any person would stay with this woman for as long as Richie did. That's absurd. I guess its good he's got Lina then, as she seems to be quite understanding about everything and is really giving him a fresh start. The dialog between the two of them i...
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