What we learn about Hamlet from Slings & Arrows

Episode 5 of "Slings & Arrows" season 1 takes a turn toward the serious, and that's all to the good I think. The show is weakest in its attempts at high jinx in that the comedy is more subtle and restrained, the best elements are how accurately it captures the world of theater and of an acting troupe - in this episode we for the first time focus on the production of Hamlet and how Jeffrey will bring it to life, and we see some pretty good scenes of his directing - how he gets various actors to really understand their characters (or tries to), culminating in his excellent direction of Jack Crew, the action-movie star hired to play Hamlet (and draw in a crowd). I like these scenes a lot in that they teach us about the practice of theater and about Shakespeare, too, for that matter. They're hardly revolutionary - just a good director at work with a modestly talented cast - which does show the limitation of this largely likable series - the implication from the outset that Jeffrey is a genius actor-director who went off the rails is never made good on. He's no Hall-Sellers-Brooks-et al., just a pro. I'm not sure what to make of the ghost of Oliver appearing - it's a good device in some ways, but the series cannot really settle on the degree to which Jeffrey is insane or impaired. Maybe that's a strength, the ambiguity, I don't know - it's obvious that to other Jeffrey seems to be delusional and suffering from perhaps Tourettes. I think it would help if they had him look less disheveled, and would also help if he weren't such an obvious leading-man type. We'll see how it wraps.