Episodes

So, Episodes.

Let's begin with the caveats. Let's bear in mind that my opinion doesn't matter to anyone; I'm an inexperienced comedy writer compared to the stupidly experienced David Crane who co-writes Episodes; I've read no reviews of Episodes and have no idea if it's already deemed a hit or a smash, so my opinion may be way off those of others, or blandly the same. My instinct is that critics will broadly be in favour of Episodes because it's about the media and they love self-parodying, industry stuff, even though most TV audiences show themselves to be consistently uninterested in this kind of thing. There. Caveats done. (and yes, 'caveat' is 3rd person present iussive subjunctive, and yes, I do have an A-Level in Latin and yes, I am keen to use it.)

Let us recall that scene in Seinfeld when Jerry and George pitch the idea for the show. George says it's about nothing. And the exec says one of those incredibly annoying things that execs say which is 'Why am I watching this show?' George tersely replies, 'Because it's on TV', implying that people will watch whatever's on.

Except George is wrong. And, it pains me to say, the exec is kind of right. "Why am I watching this show?" is one of those annoying questions to ask, but there's something in it.

And so I ask myself the question, Why am I watching Episodes? Well, I'm watching it because it's new, so I ought to watch it. It's written by one of the creators of Friends and bunch of other things. It's got Stephan Mangan and Tamsin Grieg in it - what's not to like? And, most of all, it's sort of about my job. There are four or five reasons right there.

And I'm glad I watched it. The performances were good. There were some jokes that made me laugh out loud. And before I had looked at my watch, it ended, which is a good sign.

But am I going to keep watching it? Am I excited about watching it again next week?

I have mentioned William Goldman's The Year of the Comet before on this blog. It was, apparently, the next screenplay he wrote after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Goldman knows how to write a really decent movie. And yet, he wrote The Year of the Comet, which vanished without trace. Why? Because nobody cared. Why did nobody care? Because it's a romantic comedy about a couple who are trying to track down a bottle of wine. Seriously. The trailer for it is here: (sorry if there's another ad first)

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Have you seen the trailer? Doesn't it look dreadful? 'From the writer of The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy' says the voiceover... William Goldman laughs about it now. He writes about it in his excellent and compulsory follow-up to Adventures in the Screen Trade called Which Lie did I Tell? But the point is this: Who cares about a couple who's quest is a valuable bottle of wine? Could we be made to care about them? Maybe. Do we? No. And I think this is my main problem with Episodes. I don't really care. And that makes a big difference.

Caring about these people is going to be a tall order, since this is a sitcom about wealthy successful people, who are about to have mildly annoying things done to them buy even wealthier more successful people. And the problem is what I'm really meant to care about is an abstract sitcom. This sitcom of theirs is set in a boarding school and Richard Griffiths is in it. It's won some awards. That's all I know about it. I don't get any sense that this is a prized and loved thing that I should care about. This sitcom should be their baby. It should be a part of them. Changes to it should be excruciating. But I don't quite buy that the characters really care about their baby all that much.

Maybe their sitcom should be based on themselves in some way - about a married couple - or some personal experience - and therefore tampering with it causes serious personal trauma and pain, and a clash in their relationship. The cabbie who took them home from the BAFTAs could have quoted a line or a catchphrase from the show or something. Please, just make me care about the things the characters care about. Otherwise, all they're going to do is walk away quite wealthy and slightly tanned from a failed american sitcom.

I'm sure I shall watch next week - but partly because I want to know more about the original show of theirs, just like I've always wanted to see Ricky Gervais write a whole episode of When The Whistle Blows. Writing comedy about the comedy industry is one thing. Writing a character-based sitcom for a mainstream studio audience is another. Crane can obviously do that. His awards and record prove that. He probably has two personal assistants, three homes and four yachts to prove that. This is not a bad show at all. I laughed along, and it was easy to enjoy. But I don't love it. Yet.

Getting out at the Top

It is a curiously British thing to take a sledgehammer to your own success, but that is what is regularly done - and it is, of course, partly the fault of John Cleese.

In the good old days, when your sitcom was commissioned, you milked it for all it was worth - and no-one thought worse of you for so doing. They still do that in the USA. And it's fair enough. If you manage the Herculean task of not only getting your show on air, but getting it recommissioned, and then re-recommissioned, why on earth stop? The odds are that it won't happen again. Note that even the greatest scriptwriters have penned plenty of failures that had all the ingredients but never quite worked. The cake didn't rise. The magic dust blew away. You get idea.

Fawlty Towers, a show that was largely ignored and disliked at first, may have been one at the vanguard of this habit of stopping just when they'd cracked it. Naturally John Cleese and Connie Booth were perfectly at liberty to do whatever they liked with the masterful comedy, and many people admire their restraint in stopping when the show was still good.

But why wouldn't three more series have been good? Episode 13-30 of Fawtly Towers could have explored any number of subjects and themes. Let's face it - they had the audience in the palm of their hand. The characters could all have been sellotaped to a giant bomb and it still would have got huge laughs. Once the engine of a sitcom is running, it'll serve you well for many years to come (unlike the engine out my VW Golf which I was forced to sell last year. That's for another blog - and doesn't even have a humourous story that's usable for a sitcom episode one day).

The Young Ones cut things short early and killed off everyone. Blackadder only gave us four series before hanging up their cod-pieces. Ricky Gervais 'got out at the top' in his own words on both The Office and Extras. Likewise, Corden and Jones seem unwilling to write more episodes of Gavin and Stacey - a lovely, heartwarming comedy with characters I'm only just getting to know. Why stop? I'm sure they have their reasons. New projects often seem more exciting than old ones. Understandable.

But what are British writers in general worried about? Is it concerns about a backlash? It is worries about people thinking you're cashing in your success? The British, after all, are very suspicious of success and wealth.

In America, they celebrate success. This doesn't make American's better people, by any means. Nor does it make them worse - although it does at least mean they can be happy for other people, and therefore not feel the need to constantly self-deprecate, that charming quaint British custom. This, perhaps, explains why their sitcom hits run and run and run. Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld and dozens of shows we've never even heard of make 24 episodes or so at a time. A show could run for ten years. I, for one, am glad there a nearly 200 episodes of Seinfeld. The last series was particularly funny and inventive (except for the finale - eek).

Of course, getting a show to run more than even 12 episodes is really hard work. But is that the reason Brits don't want to continue once they've done 12 or 18? Who knows? All I do know is that getting a new series up and running, and then to have it taken to the nations hearts, is even more hard work than keeping an old show fresh. I'm heartened that the writers of Peep Show keep bashing on. The fans love it. They cast and writers enjoy making it. Why stop success?