The chapter focuses on the comedy drama Episodes (2011–2018), made by the British production company Hat Trick for the BBC and Showtime. A British husband and wife duo of screenwriters work on a US network adaptation of their hit UK comedy show, which is “Americanized,” and they fight for their creative authority and their marriage. Episodes has a hybrid identity in terms of form, format, and genre, expressed in decisions including setting, casting, and performance style. Each of these can be read as a commentary on the similarities and differences between American and British television cultures, alongside the narrative’s thematization of cultural and national differences. Episodes talks about transatlantic television and self-consciously performs it, asking whether a program or a person can be transatlantic by making a joke of it. The chapter argues that Episodes is a metacommentary on deeply embedded myths about the TV of each nation.
Robust architecture search using network adaptation
