The best of the 3 seasons of Slings & Arrows

"Slings & Arrows" Season 3, which centers on a King Lear production, reprises some of Season 2 with, once again, a bombastic lead actor who threatens to ruin the show and challenges director Jeffrey Tenant's authority, but in this case the Lear, as we learn, is dying of cancer and pleads with Jeffrey to go on with the show. This season so far looks to be the best of the three - with a lot of interesting tensions building within the cast - the actors hate the bullying of the lead, particularly his snapping at the lovely young Cordelia - and the actors in KL are facing off against the younger, hipper actors in Derrin's original musical, which the director in his usual way is in the process of subsuming to one of his latest artistic theories. Richard still trying to come to terms with his success - he's a good comic actor, his scene where he gets drunk and makes a pass at Anna is really very funny. Ellen fading a bit as a character in this episode, though I do like her a lot, she need to have a sharper role than that of the cast spokeswoman - perhaps something will develop with her friendship with new cast member, Barbara? Meanwhile, Jeffrey starts therapy with a minister; he's still haunted by the ghost of Oliver, but Oliver now has the capacity to dissolve and fade away, so we can kind of see where this obsession is going by the end of the season. I really enjoy learning about Shakespeare in production from this series - loved seeing the dramatic reading, in which Lear summarizes the entire plot, bringing it right down to its primitive elements.