Reality TV with a dose of fiction

With the new TV programme Episodes, television catches up with the parodying, self-referential strategy of film.

The actor Matt LeBlanc, left, and actress Tamsin Greig, from Episodes.

Although Tony Bennett might point to a chart-topping career that began with his first number-one single 60 years ago, some might argue that the American crooner holds an even greater achievement: that of being the first person to play himself on The Simpsons.

Bennett's appearance as himself on the 1990 episode Dancing Homer would open the floodgates to a steady flow of well-known personalities given a good yellowy transformation on the series. In more than 2000 episodes, the likes of Larry King, Tom Jones, Hugh Hefner, James Brown, Paul and Linda McCartney, Elton John, Britney Spears, Stephen Hawking, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair and countless others would lend their vocals to cartoon renditions of themselves, often agreeing to considerable amounts of mockery in the process.

With Curb Your Enthusiasm, this celebrity self-awareness was transported from the 2D world as numerous - mainly American - personalities were subjected to Larry David's knuckle-bitingly awkward situations. Then Ricky Gervais stepped in, giving it a somewhat British mould with Extras, in which the unfortunate stars were made to play near-ridiculous caricatures of themselves. Particular favourites were Daniel Radcliffe failing to prove himself as a teenage Lothario and Chris Martin shamelessly trying to promote his new album while recording a charity single.

While all adding essential ingredients to the shows, these celebrity walk-on roles couldn't really be considered much more than bit parts, ever-changing canvases that the viewers already know for main characters to bounce their lunacy off. But a new BBC comedy is going a little further.

In Episodes, the US sitcom star Matt LeBlanc plays the US sitcom star Matt LeBlanc. Written by the same man who gave the actor his major break, Friends creator David Crane, the show follows a British husband-and-wife scriptwriting team (played by the UK comedy regulars Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig) as their hit BBC television show is taken across the Atlantic to the US and, subsequently, ripped to pieces by smiling network executives who insist on LeBlanc playing the lead role.

But rather than the guy everyone knows as Joey simply appearing as a one-off for just a few minutes, he's got a major role, as a "hysterically funny actor, ready to come back to TV" (a quote from a Hollywood casting director in the pilot), who is desperate to shake off the shackles of his Friends character. As he says in the trailer, he just wants to make something "they can't make fun of on a talk show" (a clear reference to his pitiful Friends spinoff, Joey).

How Matt LeBlanc as Matt LeBlanc, a former TV star desperate to return to his glory days, differs from Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani, a former TV star desperate to return to his glory days, remains to be seen, but the concept indicates that TV is beginning to catch up with film when it comes to the parodying self-referential strategy that has become so prevalent in the past decade and made famous by the likes of the writer Charlie Kaufman and the director Spike Jonze with Being John Malkovich.

In fact, the Episodes "preview" takes the metaphysical to another level with LeBlanc asked to "be a little more Matt" in his audition for his role as Matt LeBlanc, shortly after having sat in a room full of other potential LeBlancs wearing identical leather jackets and practising their best Joey-esque "how you doin" lines. So, just to recap: that's Matt LeBlanc struggling to play Matt LeBlanc in a show about Matt LeBlanc. Beat that, Inception.

In this preview, LeBlanc is told the concept of Episodes, that there's a BBC show that might originally star Ian McKellen or Derek Jacobi that is subsequently destroyed by American television producers by casting Matt LeBlanc. "So I'm the punchline," he acknowledges.

Episodes clearly gives more than a slight tip of the hat to JCVD, the 2008 film that saw Jean-Claude Van Damme play Jean-Claude Van Damme, an ageing washed-up former action star forced to roundhouse kick his way through various straight-to-video titles in order to pay off his increasing debts. Unfortunately, subsequent interviews following the release of JCVD - which has since been rated by many as Van Damme's best performance - suggest that the muscles from Brussels might not have been entirely aware of the parodying element of the film, and that the similarities in the name and background of the main character were purely coincidental.

With continual references to his success on Friends and post-Friends failures, it's unlikely that LeBlanc will think Episodes' LeBlanc character is based on anything but himself. Let's just hope that, after appearing in this searing satire on Hollywood and its penchant for rubbish remakes, he hasn't bitten the hand that feeds him too much to find further work there.

* Alex Ritman