Sea­son 4 of “Episodes,” pre­mieres tonight, a fun­ny, smart and dead-on satire of Hol­ly­wood. [Cred­it: Showtime]

LEBLANC: Yeah, well, when you say it that way, it sounds terrible.

Scene from Sea­son 3 of “Episodes”

The fourth sea­son of “Episodes” pre­mieres tonight on Show­time, promis­ing anoth­er sump­tu­ous feast of Hol­ly­wood send-ups. David Crane’s (“Friends,” “Joey”) hand­i­work has it all: self-obsessed actors, self-impor­tant exec­u­tives, mawk­ish phoni­ness and blood­less betray­als, all set among ubiq­ui­tous lies and decep­tions.  Crane’s satire is pitch-per­fect: over­drawn enough to be fun­ny, but real enough to be (almost) true. Con­tin­ue read­ing →