Episodes (BBC2, 10pm)
Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: Dennis Waterman (ITV1, 9pm)
A League of Their Own (Sky1, 9pm)

IT’S been difficult to avoid Friends star Matt Le Blanc talking about Episodes. He was everywhere, from Graham Norton to The One Show.

And why not boast about the series?

– he won his first Golden Globe for his performance as himself. Or rather, a darker version of himself.

Initially, he was nervous about playing a version of himself. However, once he found out it was essentially a scripted character “it became really fun,” he explains.

Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan also star as married writers transforming their British sitcom Lyman’s Boys into a different US version called Pucks!

It’s back for a new series, though things are rather different. “It’s a little more evenly spaced the storyline between me and some of the smaller characters; everyone has a little more time. Everyone has a little more to do,” says Le Blanc.

There are nine episodes this time compared to seven last time, and as the Friends veteran reveals, now the groundwork with cast and their surroundings has been laid, there’s a chance for the story to unfold. “In the first season there was quite a bit of exposition where we had to establish the world that these characters live in,” he says.

“There was quite a good device with Sean and Beverly being from the UK coming to America and experiencing Hollywood for the first time, and their naive ways about Hollywood enabled the writers to sort of state the obvious for their benefit as well as the audience’s benefit.

“It was really an interesting way to use them to create this world that’s exaggerated quite a bit at times of what showbusiness is like.”

The new run takes place four months after the end of season one, and the fact Beverly slept with Matt means there’s a rift between the two key Brits.

It’s anyone’s guess whether Sean and Beverly will get back together, or if Pucks! will be hit, but Le Blanc reveals, “This season is all about navigating this wickedly uncomfortable love triangle, and it’s dealt with very, very efficiently, interestingly and unexpectedly.”

ON most chat shows, the guests come out, tell a few wellrehearsed anecdotes, give their latest film/book/TV show a quick plug and then disappear again before saying anything remotely revealing.

That’s not the case with Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, where some of the guests have spoken so frankly, the interviews made headlines before they were even broadcast.

After William Roache’s admissions about his womanising past, the edition that has attracted the most press interest is this one, which focuses on actor Dennis Waterman – and sees him responding to allegations that he was violent towards his ex-wife, Rula Lenska.

As well as discussing his colourful personal life, he’ll also talk about the pressures of being in the public eye for more than five decades. After all, his extraordinary career has taken him from being a child star in the 1960s, when he played the title role in William (a series based on the Just William books), to his current success with New Tricks, via the muchloved The Sweeney and Minder.

BROADCASTER Zoe Ball and comedian John Bishop take part in this week’s edition of quiz show A League Of Their Own, alongside the likes of team captains Jamie Redknapp, Andrew Flintoff, and regular panellist Jack Whitehall.

It’s hosted by toast of Broadway James Corden, so maybe we should make the most of him while we still can.

After all, given the rave reviews he’s been picking up for One Man, Two Guvnors, he may soon be too busy fending off offers from Hollywood directors and US TV producers to bother with sports-based panel shows.