Episodes: The Complete First & Second Seasons

This Showtime cable series serves up a mild satire of the television business, told from the perspective of an English couple, Sean and Beverly Lincoln (Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig), who are brought to L.A. to Americanize their acclaimed British program for a stateside run. Predictably, the pair are dismayed when the network bastardizes their creation bit by bit, casting a totally unsuitable Matt LeBlanc in the lead and turning their sophisticated show Lyman's Boys, about a distinguished headmaster at a prep school, into a lowbrow sitcom titled Pucks!, centering on a high school hockey coach. In the first season's seven episodes, the scripts gain considerable mileage out of the network's megalomaniac boss, Merc Lapidus (John Pankow), and his sycophantic underlings, while LeBlanc shows surprising agility playing himself as a caricature of the preening but shrewd Hollywood star. Occasional moments display a real touch of brilliance, such as a disastrous audition by the star of the British program (played by the late Richard Griffiths); but Episodes increasingly pushes the business-oriented side into the background in order to concentrate on character relationships, including the disintegration of the Lincolns' marriage—a trend that continues in the nine-episode second run, which features a slew of affairs and even introduces a comic stalker to harass LeBlanc before she becomes his latest squeeze. Compiling all 16 episodes from the 2011-12 first and second seasons, DVD extras include cast biographies and photo galleries. An amiably naughty series, this is recommended. (F. Swietek)