Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King have arguably been way more valuable of late to Warner Brothers than even Bugs Bunny. King’s SEX AND THE CITY, per FORBES’ Helen Coster’s 2008 piece, earned an ambiguous “hundreds of millions of dollars” for HBO and later produced some masterful left pocket/right pocket internal dealings to the tune of $750,000 for each of its 94 episodes in an aftermarket sale to TBS. Two subsequent theatrical movies that capitalized on that persistent exposure–even if actual ratings were well below estimates since way too many fans couldn’t deal with the fact that Samantha’s multiple f–ks were bleeped–made $700 million on their own. And Kudrow? Well, while she was admittedly only one-sixth of the once-in-a-lifetime cast of FRIENDS, she was an instrumental cog in a franchise that per a 2024 KOIMOI story authored by Jishika Madaan that has netted $4.8 billion–and still counting, as a gander at Nick-at-Nite’s prime time schedule and the Samba stats of HBO Max will quickly confirm. Even attributing a fraction of that total to her gives her VIP status in Burbank in perpetuity–at least until David Ellison decides if he wants to sell the lot to developers.
So these two have long ago earned the right to a vanity project, actual ratings once again be damned. I was acutely aware of exactly how niche THE COMEBACK was when it debuted on HBO in 2000-freaking-5. VARIETY’s Kate Archer shared some supporting details in a piece she authoried yesterday:
“The Comeback,” as created by…Kudrow and…King, was originally designed to be an ongoing series, a comedy that would go on until HBO or the creators themselves decided it had run its course. Sitcom actress Valerie Cherish (Kudrow) — who was being followed by reality cameras documenting her so-called comeback on a crappy network show called “Room & Bored,” while also capturing every slight and humiliation — would have become just a character on a show.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, the 2005 premiere of “The Comeback” coincided with a rare weak period for HBO, when the network that had birthed “Sex and the City”… and “The Sopranos” was suffering from an identity crisis. During those fallow years, the powers that be then running the company decided to cancel “The Comeback” after a single 13-episode season.
Had it ended there, this would have been merely yet another example of superstars from sitcom franchises failing to connect on their own. Few, if any of us, remember Matt Leblanc’s EPISODES, which limped along by even the modest standards of Showtime with the help of a strange co-production with BBC with even less of a following than THE COMEBACK had. And I personally suffered through an inexplicable exercise in futility that Helen Hunt’s ex Joe Carnahan conned my FX brethren into commissioning that somehow thought Courtney Cox could be a viable scripted drama lead. DIRT was perhaps one of the more appropriately named missteps that I’ve even had to support, and the fact that I couldn’t do that with as straight a face as my counterpart at Disney is a huge reason why she eventually replaced me–and still has that position today.
Yet as Archer continued, THE COMEBACK was indeed able to live up to its name:
A funny thing happened, though, in the years after that cancellation. “The Comeback” — which had amassed a small, loving audience during its run, especially as viewers began to see where it was going — ascended to cult-classic status. When HBO decided to revive it in 2014, approaching King and Kudrow to ask whether they had an idea for a second season, bringing back a show was, at that point in time, still a rare thing, and not the commonplace event it is today, as mega-corporations try to suck dry their IP. No, “The Comeback” had been revived by love.
Love may have resurrected it, but those same sobering statistics that always seem to be the killjoys for small, loving audiences buried it once again. But as Archer snarked, we’re now in an era where there’s no title with the ability to generate echo effect engagement on digital platforms that isn’t given serious consideration. And if for no other reason than FRIENDS and SEX AND THE CITY continue to provide just that for HBO MAX, after an even longer gap THE COMEBACK has come back once again–for what we are cautioned is indeed a final 10-episode act that premiered last night.
Archer’s colleague Alison Herman gave us still further context why this is proving to be the Jason Vorhees of comedies:
Once a pop cultural Cassandra…the brainchild of…Kudrow and… King… has an influence, or perhaps predictive power, that grows more apparent with every passing year. The mockumentary centered on aging sitcom star Valerie Cherish’s attempted return to the spotlight presaged the format’s ubiquity in American comedy, from the American version of “The Office” to more recent applications like “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.” Valerie’s desperation and “The Comeback”‘s biting cynicism can be found in subsequent showbiz satires like “BoJack Horseman” – in which Kudrow voiced one of the title character’s love interests – and “The Other Two.” And of course, the rise of social media means that all of us are essentially starring in our own versions of “The Comeback”: DIY reality shows that promise to exchange personal disclosure for a slim chance at fame.
That sets us for the journey that began last night that takes a pointed look into the not-too-distant past and not-all-that-far-off future at once, as Archer continued:
The season premiere opens in summer 2023, during the writers strike, on the eve of the actors strike, as Valerie is attempting to be the latest entry in the procession of Roxie Harts stunt-cast into “Chicago” on Broadway. She’s being documented by her social media assistant, Patience (Ella Stiller), with a reluctant Jane (Laura Silverman) also in tow. After a three-year time jump, Valerie is confounded by a dilemma when her manager, Billy (Dan Bucatinsky) offers her forbidden fruit: The lead role in the first sitcom ever to be written entirely by AI.
And as Herman concludes in her soliloquy:
As the eight episode season broadens its scope from Valerie’s career to the larger, sorry state of Hollywood in 2026, the message becomes clear: in this dire situation, everyone is now Valerie Cherish, with all the self-abasement that entails. And Valerie herself starts to look increasingly like the adult in the room.
It’s somewhat apropos that the arc for this swan song just happens to coincide with the beginning of the process that will ultimately see Warner Brothers swallowed up by a rival studio under management that is particularly obsessed with integrating digital technology into every aspect of the business–all the more likely when it’s remembered that the oligarch footing the bill for this endeavor just happens to run one of the world’s largest software companies specializing in AI infrastructure. Those that remain at the studio and the network are far too preoccupied with the immediate future of their careers to care one whit about whether anyone actually watches this season, and after catching the first half-hour I can assure you I won’t be one of them. Yes, Valerie Cherish is intended as a loathsome character and an over-the-top satirization of the kind of vapid, self-obsessed talent that permeates the industry. But in light of Jean Smart’s brilliance and multiple Emmys on HACKS–with a far more engaging and breakthrough supporting cast than Kudrow is surrounded by here, Cherish now seems as outdated and underevolved as anything else with roots going back to the mid-oughts–such as the I Phone and the DVR. And while I confess I got a chuckle or two out of Fran Drescher’s cameo reprising her omnipresence as the Norma Rae of Hollywood during Strike Summer, the same strategy as employed by Seth Rogan in THE STUDIO that cast Ron Howard and Martin Scorcese in similarly WTF stints was to me a lot more engaging and effective.
And I fear that as HBO itself may be heading toward a fate where it will be eventually reduced to a tile on a monolithic platform that appears determined to reinvent the wheel because hey, what do we old farts actually know anyhow? whatever love and cult following may have been able to make this happen will be a LOT less unlikely to happen again. I’m afraid no more COMEBACKS will be heading our way after this. And, sadly, more and more that list also includes mine.
Until next time…