Like the mythical city of Brigadoon, Lisa Kudrowโs โThe Comebackโ has returned to television after many years away, with the difference that time has not stood still for its inhabitants, older in a changing world that values them less and which they navigate with less assurance.
Kudrow, who created and writes the series with Michael Patrick King, was in her youth a player in the twilight of network-dominated television, cast in a smart, influential show with wide, multigenerational appeal; in a quantitative sense, at least, everything would be downhill from there, as the medium transformed and transformed again. โThe Comebackโ premiered in 2005, just a year after the end of โFriendsโ; the first season addressed the rise of reality TV, and the next season, in 2014, riffed on dark, streaming โprestigeโ television.
The new (and final) season, which is both timely and speculative, addresses the impact of artificial intelligence on the medium and the industry, hinting at a dystopian future; this gives it a moral, even political component, not to say a sense of urgency. Not surprisingly, โThe Comeback,โ as a thing made by humans, comes down firmly on their side โ itโs a manifesto at times โ even as it acknowledges, uncomfortably, that computer-produced content might be โgood enough.โ
Once again, Kudrow plays Valerie Cherish, who, at 60 โ the phrase โof a certain ageโ repeats throughout the series โ still qualifies as a working actor. But sheโs been pushed into the further reaches of the profession: Her two-season cozy mystery series, โMrs. Hattโ (โpart-time gardener, solves crime, husband is an ex-police chiefโ), is on no oneโs radar but her own, having shown on Epix. A dayโs work on a โno-budgetโ film is even less rewarding than she had imagined; she lasted all of two episodes on โThe Traitors.โ Paddling hard to stay current, to improve her brand, she bumbles through a podcast, โCherish the Time,โ without any idea what to do with that time; employs a social media person, Patience (Ella Stiller), with no discernible impact; and posts pictures of herself holding products in hopes of โfuture collabs.โ
Still, she is not poor. Valerie and husband Mark (Damian Young), have moved from Brentwood to a condominium with a view in the (real life) Sierra Towers, overlooking the Sunset Strip, opening the latest โnew chapterโ in their lives, though just what that chapter for them is hard to say. Mark has lost his job in finance โ โYou told a joke at work at a time when jokes were illegal,โ Valerie says, trying to cheer him, โno one cares nowโ โ but left on a golden parachute; now he builds his day around pickleball. A potential role in a reality show, โFinance Dudes,โ isnโt working out to anyoneโs satisfaction. Heโs on the verge of a three-quarter-life crisis.
When her self-promoting manager/publicist Billy (Dan Bucatinsky) comes to her waving an offer for a new series, for a new network, in which sheโll star, Valerie is more than intrigued, if taken aback when he tells her that itโs being written by AI. (He isnโt supposed to know.) Network head Brandon (Andrew Scott, as blandly discomfiting as his Moriarty on โSherlockโ) assures her that it is โwithin the Writers Guild agreement,โ but that it is also a secret โ which will account for a lot of comedy going forward, secrets and lies being the very stuff of the form. โAI is really extraordinary,โ he tells Valerie. โAfter all, it picked you.โ
Itโs also created a wholly generic multicamera sitcom, โHowโs That?,โ in which Valerieโs character, Beth, as she describes it, โruns a cute, charming old New England B&B with the help of her hunk nephew, Bo โ so Beth and Bo, B&B.โ (โViewers want a break from the complicated confusing storylines of all these dark streaming shows,โ says a network exec.) Her eager supporting cast has no idea that the series is being written by anything other than its human faces, unhappily married couple Josh (John Early) and Mary (Abbi Jacobson). Josh, who thinks of himself as โthe voice of women of a certain age,โ is precious about the jokes he manages to get into the script; Mary couldnโt care less. Untalented writing assistant Marco (Tony Macht) only wants โto get, like, a really nice house.โ The AI, meanwhile, is personified to the cast and crew, who know nothing about it, as someone named โAl,โ who โworks remotely.โ
One by one, the old company is introduced into the new season, Valerie finds Jane (Laura Silverman), her former documentarian, working as a cashier at Trader Joeโs, having tired of scuffling as a filmmaker, โbegging people to care about the things that I cared about.โ When Valerie lets it slip that her new series is AI-generated โ โbut donโt tell anyone โcause thatโs a secretโ โ Jane is inspired to pick up her camera again. Lance Barber will eventually rejoin as screenwriter Paulie G., Valerieโs old nemesis. Robert Michael Morris, who played Mickey, Valerieโs hairdresser and best friend, in earlier seasons, passed away in 2017; Jack OโBrien, as Tommy, occupies a version of that space here.
Valerie may be only moderately successful, but she isnโt a hack. She has an Emmy for โSeeing Red,โ the drama at the center of Season 2. She pushes back against the costumer (Benito Skinner) who wants to put her in a caftan. She knows her craft and is nominally proud of belonging to a union. Sheโs not a diva, but she has her pride. And that she is loyal, even when it does her no good, makes her easy to like. Thrust half-wittingly onto this cutting edge โ being the first in an AI comedy, Mark tells her, โis like saying, โI was the first one to eat an arm in the Donner Partyโโ โ she is wholly sympathetic, and, eventually, as things bend toward horror in a last-act revelation, a hero.
Though the subject is serious, the approach this time is light and farcical. Partially abandoning the documentary aesthetic of its predecessors โ the first season had the look of amateur video, and the second of guerrilla filmmaking โ much of this season is shot as a conventional, non-meta television show, allowing us access to private conversations and meetings without having to account for Jane and her crew, or requiring the players to act as if theyโre being watched. Paradoxically, without pretending to reality, it makes some things more real.
Playing himself, director James Burrows, whom Valerie convinces to helm her pilot, notes that the jokes AI writes might come fast but are never better than obvious. โSurprising only comes from a group of writers huddled in a corner beating themselves up to beat out a better show,โ he says. And just as Valerie is not a character an algorithm could produce, Kudrow is not an actor a machine could ever imagine. Sheโs no Tilly Norwood, or Tilly Norwood at 60, or Tilly Norwood with quirks applied. Thereโs no one like herโ other than her โ for the learning machines to scrape.
You should never settle for โgood enoughโ when better, or best, is available. But that choice is on you.