First Trailer for Showtime’s EPISODES Starring Matt LeBlanc

Since Matt LeBlanc had some trouble being anybody but Joey Tribbiani from his breakout work on Friends, maybe playing a fictional version of himself on a cable series will help. That’s the idea behind Showtime’s forthcoming new series Episodes, which follows a British couple who has their popular TV show in the UK being remade for American audiences. The duo find themselves pressured by executives to cast Matt LeBlanc, a washed up TV star, in the lead role.

While this sounds like it hits a little too close to home for the actor, LeBlanc told journalists at the TCA press tour that “It’s not really myself. It’s a character that David [Crane] and Jeffrey [Klarik] wrote that happens to have the same name as me. There are some similarities, but for the most part it’s a fictitious character.” You can judge for yourself by checking out the first trailer for impressive-looking new series after the jump.

Matt LeBlanc stars as Matt LeBlanc in EPISODES, the hilarious new comedy series about remaking a comedy series. When husband and wife writing team Sean and Beverly set out to reproduce their British TV hit for an American network, all of their worst fears come true as Hollywood lives up to its reputation for absurdity. Not only does the network cast Matt LeBlanc in the starring role, but Matt takes the lead in deviously twisting their beloved series into a terrible cliché, while testing the couple’s marriage with diversions and temptations.