{"id":2340849,"date":"2026-03-22T12:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T12:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2340849"},"modified":"2026-03-22T12:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T12:17:09","slug":"the-comeback-is-back-for-valerie-cherishs-curtain-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-comeback-is-back-for-valerie-cherishs-curtain-call\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Comeback\u2019 is back for Valerie Cherish\u2019s curtain call"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n \u201cThe Comeback\u201d was by no means the first series to hold a funhouse mirror up to the entertainment industry, but the comedy starring co-creator Lisa Kudrow<\/a>, which returns for its final season on Sunday, has certainly always done it in its own navel-gazing yet endearing way.\n <\/p>\n

\n As eternally optimistic and entirely self-absorbed actress Valerie Cherish, Kudrow and executive producer Michael Patrick King struck cult classic gold with the first season in 2005, showcasing the ups and downs of the LA actor life, from working with toxic writers to making sure your hair is just right no matter where you are.\n <\/p>\n

\n Since the show last aired in 2014 \u2014 as part of a rare-at-the-time post-cancellation resurrection \u2014 Hollywood has found itself at the center of several other biting comedies, like awards season darlings \u201cHacks\u201d and \u201cThe Studio<\/a>,\u201d from \u201cComeback\u201d Season 2 guest star Seth Rogen.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, 21 years after \u201cThe Comeback\u201d first premiered, there is room for all of them, even if the runaway success of Rogen\u2019s blistering takedown of Hollywood prompted Kudrow and Co. to do a little tweaking to the final season behind the scenes.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe were mindful of, let\u2019s not be running around in golf carts too much,\u201d Kudrow said at a recent press conference, referencing the many frantic golf cart rides Rogen and his cohorts take in the Apple TV series, which is filmed on the same studio lot as \u201cThe Comeback.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n King made the distinction that \u201cThe Comeback\u201d is \u201cmore of a jab at ego than Hollywood.\u201d See: a hilarious bit in this new season during which Kudrow\u2019s Valerie brings her social media curator to a WGA strike and becomes nonplussed when a picketer\u2019s sign blocks her best angle.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a cautionary tale, for me, to be careful about chasing the spotlight,\u201d King said. \u201cHollywood\u2019s just a great circus arena because so many people want to be in the spotlight.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

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\n A lot has happened in the world since everyone last saw Valerie. The pandemic and the two union strikes<\/a> that hobbled Hollywood in recent years are humorously addressed at the top of the new season, which largely tackles the arrival of artificial intelligence as Valerie agrees to star in a new sitcom written by AI.\n <\/p>\n

\n Once the idea was born, it was ostensibly fast-tracked to production because the premise was seen as being in a race against reality, where it\u2019s entirely possible that AI-written shows are not far from coming to fruition \u2014 if they haven\u2019t already.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was very much as-fast-as-you-can,\u201d King said of the approval process for Season 3. \u201cOur goal was to get on the air before a studio admitted they were using AI.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

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\n \"(from<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n Kudrow said it \u201creally had to be an idea like the AI thing\u201d for her to return to this world after so much time had elapsed \u2014 even longer than the break between the first two seasons \u2014 and likened Valerie taking on this new technology to her \u201cultimate battle.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cJust as reality TV was the almost-extinction event at the time for scripted television, it\u2019s the same feeling about AI,\u201d she explained, in a nod back to how the show\u2019s first season came about during the initial aughts-era reality TV explosion, which prompted fears about the fate of scripted content<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n But how do you make that funny?\n <\/p>\n

\n King, a seasoned industry vet with \u201cSex and the City,\u201d \u201c2 Broke Girls\u201d and much more under his belt, had a perfect and very simple answer: \u201cThe comedy comes from the fear.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Comeback\u201d premieres Sunday on HBO Max, which like celebrity.land is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.<\/em>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source edition.celebrity.land.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Comeback\u201d was by no means the first series to hold a funhouse mirror up to the entertainment industry, but the comedy starring co-creator Lisa Kudrow, which returns for its final season on Sunday, has certainly always done it in its own navel-gazing yet endearing way. As eternally optimistic and entirely self-absorbed actress Valerie Cherish, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2340850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2340849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/\u2018The-Comeback-is-back-for-Valerie-Cherishs-curtain-call.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340851,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340849\/revisions\/2340851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2340850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}