The state of British comedy is bewailed almost as often as the general state of the nation but when you have a series like Episodes, it does provoke gritted teeth, if not full-scale gnashing. There was one big reason why I chose to indulge half an hour of my time in this tripe and that was to see if Matt Le Blanc could resurrect his TV career after the disaster of Joey (a production name-checked here in an egregious name-calling case of pots, kettles and the colour black). He had been good in Charlie’s Angels, not so good in Lost in Space, but these were at his level. Friends was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those involved as Jennifer Anniston proves. Yet he oozes charisma and one just wants the big schmuck to do well. He probably thought the BBC was such a revered organisation to appear on it would be the televisual equivalent of playing The Prince. Sadly, such a rose-tinted view is not so applicable in the 21st-Century. The other ‘stars’ were Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig – meh. Give me my Le Blanc fix, not 30 unfunny seconds of him. Richard Griffiths was a ‘special guest star’ as opposed to an ordinary guest star, but he emerged with credit to himself, doing the best he could with the material.
After about ten minutes my lips were so stiff and horizontal they were developing rigamortis, with occasional spasms like the legs of a dead frog kicking from quarter-jokes or eighth-jokes (to call them half-jokes would stretch the boundaries of truth, no less than decency) that slumped onto the show like a moribund dog dragging itself home. It was as old as 1970s sitcoms in the concept, but lacking in any of the repartee of the best of that genre. It more like the awful décor of the decade and any Rising Damp was in it very fibre than its script - it is ripe for demoltion. It could have worked if filmed in a manner like The Office (another show name-checked last night) and then the awfulness could have been palmed off as a documentary of the banality of life, for I’m sure plenty of the set-up is how much of American television gets commissioned. It tries to be a player, but this is no The Player. Just because you dispense with the canned laughter doesn’t automatically make you sophisticated; however, if you’re not up to the mark, you are far more likely to get canned.