Episodes to end after five series

There have long been rumours that the Matt LeBlanc comedy would end after its latest series which begins filming in London next week and had its first table read earlier today:

Season five will debut in 2017, but this run will be its last, reports Variety.

The final series will see LeBlanc as the host of The Box, a wildly successful game show, which unfortunately leads viewers to forget he was ever an actor in the first place.

Meanwhile, Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) are forced to work for Sean's former partner Tim (Bruce Mackinnon) who is possibly the worst showrunner in the history of television.

Things aren't going much better for Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins), who's out of a job, money and possibly showbusiness, but things are looking up for her former lover Merc (John Pankow), now a producer on The Box and taking every opportunity to ruin Matt's life. He did have an affair with his wife, after all.

Confirming the end of the show, co-creators David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik said, "We have had the best time making this show. Showtime has been the opposite of every network we write about. If it were up to them we could go on making Episodes forever. But we've told the story we set out to tell and we'd never want to outstay our welcome."

Gary Levin, Showtime's president of programming, added: "Episodes' scathing portrait of network executives has kept me on my best behaviour these last several years, for which I am grudgingly grateful to Jeffrey and David. I love this show and can't wait to see what comic heights Matt and company will scale during the fifth and final season of our inspired series."

For LeBlanc, the end of Episodes heralds an even busier spell in the 48-year-old's career. He recently joined Chris Evans for filming on BBC's revamped Top Gear, set to debut on screens in the coming months, and has kept his toe in comedy with a CBS sitcom pilot likely to be ordered for the 2016/7 season.