It turns out that to make a TV series about the current state of the entertainment industry that will make audiences feel even the slightest bit hopeful, it takes about a decade.
That’s the case with The Comeback, the unicorn of an HBO comedy with a following as devoted as if fans actually discovered some sort of mythical, magical horse. They might as well have, given the series’ unique trajectory: a sorely underappreciated first season that debuted in 2005, returned almost 10 years later for a Season 2, and, now, a triumphant miracle of a Season 3 to complete the trilogy.
Debuting March 22, the show, co-created by Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King and starring the Friends icon, catches up with actress Valerie Cherish as she encounters yet another evolution in her career. This next stage is once again set against the industry at a crossroads—and once again finding her careening through the bumps and hairpin turns of navigating the new challenges with hardly a seatbelt or air bag in sight.
The series, which could be viewed as a comedy or a tragedy, depending on the audience member’s point of view or mood that day, continues to be a prescient satire, a bleak reflection, and a wittily human portrait of the seismic shifts in Hollywood in each year it’s aired. Almost as if it’s a once-every-10-years Showbiz State of the Union.
The show is sometimes a funhouse mirror reflecting the cynicism, contraction, and commercial chaos poisoning the great art of making television, but it is more often a startling, transparent window into that world and all its comedic lunacy. The Comeback makes hilarious and boisterous fun, of course—the industry practically begs for it—but it’s also a concerning documentary about what’s happening to our culture, told through Valerie’s eyes.
This story appears on the Obsessed by Kevin Fallon Substack. To read the rest, head to Substack.
