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Episodes in the Media

maraleia

By maraleia
in Episodes [V]

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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

(edited)

That is great news. There was an announcement to that effect right at the conclusion of this season's final episode--a title card which read "Episodes will be back in a new season," or words to that effect. This cheered me greatly, because in a field with a lot of good competition, Episodes IMO is the smartest, funniest comedy on television in many a year. Les Moonves (who actually had a cameo in the season finale) seems to be a TV executive of the old school--i.e., if he likes a show himself and knows it's good, he supports it.

Edited by Milburn Stone
scrb

scrb

How many episodes of Episodes season 4 will there be?

 

Did Showtime up the budget a bit for more?  They seem to be promoting it more and the shorter period between S3 and S4 versus previous seasons seem like the network is more bullish on the show.

 

Kind of surprising this show doesn't get more buzz.  Grantland podcast kind of dismissed it while talking about S2 of The Comeback.  Episodes is more broad comedy while The Comeback does have more serious moments and casts a critical glance at Valery's striving for keeping her career alive.  But Episodes really plays well the egotism of LeBlanc's persona as satire on TV celebrities.

scrb

scrb

Surprised to hear they still film in London.  Lot of sunny scenes, especially at the beach and up on supposedly Griffith Park.

 

I thought filming in London was one of the reasons there was such a long period between seasons and the fact that each season consisted of such few episodes, because UK TV shows typically have fewer episodes per season or series as they call it.

 

Season 4 followed S3 by a shorter period than the previous seasons and aren't there more episodes in S4 than the previous seasons?

maraleia

maraleia

  • Author

 

Perkins plays Carol Rance, the wife of Matt LeBlanc’s character.

I've misunderstood so much!

That's not true. This is Matt's ex- Fiona Glascott as Diane (Season 1–4) — Matt's ex-wife. She is often angry with Matt. She threatens to limit his visitation rights to their two sons, Aiden and Michael, when she finds out Matt has been with his stalker Labia.

joelene

joelene

(edited)

That's not true. This is Matt's ex- Fiona Glascott as Diane (Season 1–4) — Matt's ex-wife. She is often angry with Matt. She threatens to limit his visitation rights to their two sons, Aiden and Michael, when she finds out Matt has been with his stalker Labia.

Lol, I know, I was just making fun of the article and interviewer who got it wrong. I don't think the interviewer had ever even seen the show.

Edited by joelene
  • Love 1
Sakura12

Sakura12

In this day and age it's just lazy for an interviewer to not do any research for an interview. She could've just read the wiki page right before the interview and had the basic info she needed. Although she did just prove one the bits in the show, where Merc had never seen Bev and Sean's show but kept saying how much he loved it. They are getting Hollywood right. lol

  • Love 4
slowpoked

slowpoked

 

So it was set out early on that Carol will never be the boss. That actually explained some things for me. For one I thought Castor Soto was a complete waste of time in S3, but now with more knowledge on Carol's story arc, it makes much more sense.

Alex

Alex

Andrea Savage talks #Bance here (slight spoilers so beware) http://www.afterellen.com/tv/413981-andrea-savage-lesbian-adjacent-new-episodes-romance

 

From the interview (bold mine):

 

"AE: That’s what I love so much about Episodes. It’s true! And even if you don’t know Hollywood, the show has some of the best writing I’ve ever seen.

AS: The writing on Episodes is one of the, if not the best, writing in comedy television. It’s incredible. We sit down to a nine-hour table read before the season. We read all [nine episodes] in one day.

AE: Wait, what?

AS: Yeah. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. They have them all done, and we all get together in a big room, and we read them all day. When I tell you every single script works and is so funny and tight? It was mind-boggling and one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen."

 

Wow. I wish other shows could do the same and not amending according to the fandom mood...

Of course this is a 30 minutes 9 episodes season, so it's easier to be dealt with than a 45 minutes 22 episodes season. But still...

  • Love 1
Inquisitionist

Inquisitionist

(edited)

That's kind of cool.  Guess they are not worried about an actor's choices in early episodes being affected by what they know about later episodes... or maybe they think that knowledge is good?  I guess it's not a problem with movies, where actors have read the entire script before shooting starts.

Edited by Inquisitionist
  • Love 2
Fisher King

Fisher King

Anyone know how well the show is doing in the ratings? Do we think we'll get a fifth season?

 

I really don't know but it seems the show has never been more popular. Showtime did promote it more this season and Sho tends to renew shows despite less than impressive ratings.  Nurse Jackie is a good example. I watch NJ but am honestly surprised it has run this long as the quality is nowhere near what it was early on IMO.

 

I'll keep subscribing to Showtime for this show as long as they're willing to keep it going.

 

I'm also wondering how devoted the BBC is to its involvement and if Showtime would consider shouldering the entire production.

  • Love 1
dcinmb

dcinmb

'Episodes' Creators Embark On DIY Emmy FYC Campaign (deadline.com)

Showtime’s Episodes has landed Emmy nominations for each of its first three seasons, including three consecutive acting noms for star Matt LeBlanc and three writing ones for series creators David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik who pen every episode. The comedy, which is being produced in the U.K. on a shoestring budget, ended its nine-episode fourth season exactly three months ago, and Crane and Klarik thought it may not be on Emmy voters’ minds. Feeling that their show is being outmuscled big time by rivals in the Emmy campaign, the two decided to take things into their hands with an ad they scribbled on a white sheet of paper. The actual, hand-written note, is being submitted to the trades and paid for by Crane and Klarik to run alongside the glossy FYI spreads commissioned by studios and networks. Here is how the duo explain the motive behind the their decision, followed by their actual note-turned-ad. DIY campaigns are rare, but such a move worked for Melissa Leo, who won an Oscar in 2011.

 

“Okay, this may be the most pathetic instance of self-promotion ever. But let’s face it, we’re a bit pathetic and in need of self-promotion. So here goes. Everywhere we look there’s For Your Consideration stuff.  We open the trades or turn on our computers and there’s a spread for this and an insert for that. And the millions of DVD’s in the mail and billboards. Don’t get us started on billboards. We just feel like our show is invisible. (Which may really come down to self-esteem issues, but what can you do?)  And even worse, we’ve been off the air for so long, and let’s be honest, we simply don’t get the kind of attention a lot of other shows get. It all comes down to this, we love our little show — and we especially love our cast — and we don’t want to see it — and them— slip through the cracks.  So we actually took out an ad ourselves. (This is where the pathetic self-promotion comes in.) As you can see, we did it at the last minute.  But it seemed really important to get it out there to remind people about us.  We probably should have spent the money on therapy.  But clearly therapy hasn’t helped us yet, so we went with the ad. – Jeffrey (and David)”

 

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  • Love 4
DianeDobbler

DianeDobbler

I just spent a couple of weeks binge-watching Episodes after having caught pieces on youtube. It makes me annoyed at a few critical reviews I've read in Variety, AV Club and elsewhere. I thought some of these reviews spent too much time pointing out that Episodes travels well-worn road without crediting Episodes for being exceptionally tightly plotted, motivated, and hilarious in execution while doing so. Who cares if we've seen some exec on the treadmill in high heels three times already? It was funny every time. Even the critical reviews appear to at least appreciate Matt LeBlanc's performance. I think it's absolutely fantastic - he's got a great range and also great taste/judgment/timing. Really curious about Season 5 and hoping to see the end of Helen Bosch - she scares me to death.

  • Love 7
scrb

scrb

No word on when season 5 (or Series 5) will air.

 

Season 4 started airing in January 2015, along with Season 4 of House of Lies.

 

Now House of Lies has been announced to begin its fifth season in April but no word on Episodes.

 

Shoot, it's been just over a year now.  The wiki articles says it will start filming in 2016 and air in 2016?  Damn that could mean towards the end of this year.

 

We're going to see a lot more gray hair on the cast members.

  • Love 1
scrb

scrb

That's too bad.

 

This show probably isn't getting huge ratings on Showtime nor getting a lot of positive critical attention.

 

But it probably helped him and maybe some of the other cast members in getting new projects?  And there's been so much time between seasons of what 8 or 10 episodes that it's probably a hassle for the American actors to go to England.  No doubt there are more lucrative opportunities now for MLB.

 

Kind of ironic, MLB and Lisa Kudrow were on a monster show ratings-wise but then getting raves for their performances in these much smaller projects years after Friends.  Then you see actors like Amanda Peete and Sarah Poulson getting raves for their current work and you remember that they too were pretty young actors cast in the lightweight, Friends-like Jack and Jill.  You wonder where they developed their chops since doing those shows when they were young.

Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

Man with a Plan doesn't look that bad to me, actually. And I find myself amazed to say that.

I chuckled silently at a few of the lines in the promo, lines which went a slightly different way than I expected them to.

The narcissistic nonchalance of the character is clearly based on the "Matt Le Blanc" of Episodes, which makes it lose points on originality, but since Episodes will be ending in the near future,  I can accept this as a weak-tea way to keep the fun going. Could do without the canned laughter, but I'll give it a try.

  • Love 2
Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

(edited)

Interesting. From the look of the promo, the part of "the wife" is (unfortunately) your generic "wife of main character, cast any actress here" role. It doesn't look like the kind of a wife role that a Leah Remini or a Patricia Heaton could do something with and make her own, for example. So I could see how Jenna Fischer--who actually has a personality, and whom I would be disappointed to see play something as generic as "wife"--wouldn't be right for it. Maybe she began to realize the same thing.

Edited by Milburn Stone
wendyg

wendyg

More likely, they'd have better chemistry if they had better writing. Neither Leah Remini nor Patricia Heaton would be able to do "something with" a role that's written to be personality-free. Even Nancy Travis, who displayed plenty of personality in ALMOST PERFECT, can't do "something with" the utterly non-role she's given in LAST MAN STANDING. (Or was - I haven't seen it since the first couple of episodes, largely because of that.)

I attended a sitcom writing workshop a few years ago, where we were assigned a script to rewrite. It was really interesting to see that the three men in the room thought it was perfectly fine that the lead female was a completely blank slate and the other woman and I had to argue for giving her concerns of her own. "But most sitcoms are like that," they said. "Yes," we said, "and that's what's *wrong* with most sitcoms."

It's 2016 and the networks are in trouble. You'd think it would have occurred to them that alienating half their audience was REALLY REALLY DUMB. And then they fret that women want to watch MOM.

  • Love 4
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