Episodes: Matt LeBlanc Discusses His Penis

Matt LeBlanc was easy on the eye as Joey on Friends (1994-2004), and he's still quite photogenic, even when playing "himself" as an insufferable jerk.

Of course, in Hollywood, everybody, without exception, is a jerk.

That's one of the takeaway points of the regrettably named Episodes (2011-2017), the British/American sitcom about a British couple, Sean and Beverly (Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Grieg), who produce sitcoms of breathtaking brilliance in Britain, only to find them dumbed down into drivel in America.

The second takeaway point: all Americans are idiots.

The fabulously brilliant sitcom about an elderly headmaster of a boys' school suffering through an unrequited love for the lesbian librarian is transformed into Pucks!, with Matt as the hockey coach at a school for teenage hunks with nice hair.

They're playing teenagers, but they're actually in their 20s, with wives and houses -- a fact which Sean and Bev find incredibly disconcerting.  In Britain, actors play their age.

The teenage hunks can't act, but they're immediately rich and famous, and wallowing in movie offers.  But paradoxically Pucks! is airing opposite a show about a talking dog, so it tanks in the ratings, and is quickly cancelled.

Not that Sean and Beverly mind.  They hate, hate, hate, America, where everyone makes fun of their accents and vocabulary, everyone is incredibly stupid, and everyone is morally bankrupt.

Matt sleeps with every woman in sight, including Beverly --- a transgression that Sean can't get over, because he is fixated with the size of Matt's schlong.

To be fair, Matt discusses his penis a lot.  So do many of the other male characters. 

They are also irked by the fact that their incredibly stupid, talentless former personal assistant, Andrew Leslie (Oliver Kieran-Jones), is a huge success, selling script after script.


They almost escape back to Britain, where no one makes fun of their accent and people are smarter than rocks, but then they are drawn into a new tv series based on their incredibly brilliant script about actors playing two different roles.

But that's destroyed, too.

And Matt becomes a game show host.  His incredibly popular show is about people who spend the whole season trapped in boxes, getting points to acquire comforts like beds and food, or to torture each other with bugs and Gilbert Gottfried.

See how stupid Americans are?  They actually like this drivel.

Meanwhile the bedroom shenanigans go on and on.  Network executive Carol Rance (Kathleen Rose Perkins) has affairs with each of her bosses in turn: Merc (John Pankow), Castor (Chris Diamantopoulous), Helen (Andrea Savage), and then back to Merc.  They all turn out to be cheating, sniveling scum or crazy as a loon.

Doesn't that affair with Helen means that Carol is coming out as gay or bisexual?  Nope, she's not attracted to women, just to bosses.

At least there's a gay presence.  Casting director Andrew Button (Joseph May) is gay, although he never actually dates anyone or discusses cute guys.  He's basically gay because he says he is.

There are also a lot of cute guys walking around in towels and talking about their penises.