"Episodes": TV's Funniest Show?

Tasmin Greig and Stephen Mangan  (tv equals)

I flat out forgot how darn funny Showtime's "Episodes" was until it resumed last week with its second season. 

Season one was technically a mini-season, as the show ran a teasingly brief seven episodes. Season two has been mercifully extended to nine half-hours of acutely observed, tartly clever satire. It's target? The cultural Anglo-American gulf as experienced by a pair of screenwriters lured out to Hollywood to adapt their hit British TV series for the US market.

One the sharpest, most incisive comedies currently on telly, it is hugely funny, yet not necessarily for those American patriots too thin-skinned to appreciate the immensely focused, trenchant observations of the often shallow, narcissistic tendencies of the network television industry.

"Nurse Jackie" Keeps Getting Better

Eve Best, Peter Facinelli and Bobby Cannavale  (showtime)

After just completing its fourth season, "Nurse Jackie" asserts itself anew as the strongest of Showtime's wave of femme-centric series, a movement that began with the whimsical but trivial Mary Louise Parker-led "Weeds" and most recently includes the Laura Linney vehicle "The Big C" which just concluded a discouraging third season and has yet to be renewed.

Don Cheadle Heads Biting "House of Lies"

Don Cheadle in "House of Lies"  (eurweb)

Don Cheadle is currently heading the cast of one of television's funniest shows, "House of Lies" on Showtime.

Why "Are You There", Chelsea?

Laura Prepon and Chelsea Handler  (NBC)

It is telling that Chelsea Handler does not play the lead character on "Are You There, Chelsea?", the new network sitcom based on her best selling book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea.