Too many scenes in Slings and Arrows just fall flat

I want to like "Slings and Arrows" but it's just not as good, or funny, as it could be, or ought to be. Though they get the behavioral nuances of theater people dead right (or spot on, as theater people would say), and the skewering of the corporate-management sorts who want to run the Shakespeare festival as a profitable business is very funny and maybe even the highlight of the series, far too many scenes just include a few incidental comic lines or moments and then fall flat. For example, in episode 2 (season 1), there's the big funeral scene for Oliver, and the build-up is what will his rival director/former protege Jeffrey say? Everyone seems almost freaked out that he's been invited to speak, and there's a lot of build-up as he paces backstage and we hear snippets of the other speakers, all very ordinary, and at last Jeffrey speaks and, so what? He reads some "notes" that Oliver had given to the cast in some earlier production, and then he wanders off stage. This should have been a killer scene, it should have established Jeffrey's personality - we have to believe by this point in the series that he's a brilliant but troubled director who's going to take over the festival and change everything. His character has not emerged to the slightest degree. Similarly, Rachel McAdams plays an apprentice who's very sweet but also ambitious - and she tries out for a commercial and seemingly flubs the audition. Then gets the job. This is impossible. They should show her doing something crazy at the audition that shocks everyone and gets her the job. In short, this series has some nice moments but doesn't really know how to nail a scene that will really stand out in our minds.