Look...I know...this is really long.
Being a lifelong worshipper at the altar of RuPaul Charles, I immediately took note when he had Lisa Kudrow stop by on Drag Race. He ruvealed that Kudrow is the reason for his iconic "hello hello hello!" when he walks into a room. It's taken from her character in "The Comeback". Okay neat factoid, never heard of the show.
Then Ru says something that makes my ears perk up, which is that "The Comeback" is one of the most underrated comedies of all time. So my interest at this point is, shall we say, piqued.
Well, The Comeback is a God damn ride, let me tell you.
So the history on the show is fascinating. Lisa Kudrow, post friends was asked by Michael Patrick King if she would ever want to do another show and she flat out said "NO."
Except, she would make one show, and she launches into doing her favourite improv bit that she developed well before Friends, called "your favourite actress on a talk show."
The bit basically skewers the generic vapid actress who is all ego and completely un-self-aware. Michael Patrick King is instantly sold and the two of them develop the show together on the spot.
Kudrow's character is a former 90s sitcom star trying to make a come back on an idiotic sitcom. With the role comes a reality show about her called "The Comeback," which chronicles the process of trying to climb back into the limelight as a middle aged 'has been'.
It's been described as one of the most scathing and accurate portrayals of the rampant sexism and ageism in the television world at the time. It's a comedy, so it's often delivered as awkward cringe, but just below the surface, it's searing, brilliant commentary.
It was canceled after one season and received mixed reviews.
Then something insane happened. Years passed, sexism became a thing we started caring about a bit more, tv matured in content quite a bit and the old sitcoms started looking very dated, reality tv blew up, but also we became more aware of reality tv bullshit.
So nearly a decade later, a bunch of people started watching or re-watching The Comeback, and some reviewers actually went back and RE-reviewed it.
It had been made 10 years too early. The audience wasn't ready for it. So what did Kudrow and King do? They resurrected it with almost ALL of the original cast, revisit and grapple with the conflicts of the first season. It's set a decade later, so the characters are all in very different places in life, which makes season 2 rather tonally distinctive. It's in many ways easier to watch because season 1 sets up the conflicts, and season 2 explores them.
What's even more interesting is why they stopped after season two. So a key character is Kudrow's sidekick, her old, gay hairstylist. The role was written for a particular actor, they basically said they couldn't do the show without him. The problem was that he was long retired, so Kudrow and King needed to coax him out of retirement.
They then had to re-coax him out of retirement again a decade later for season 2. The actor died not long after, so Kudrow said "that's it, the show is done".
Now this show is designed to seem a bit like an Arrested Development style show that's all about social awkwardness among generally unlikeable, but nonetheless charming characters who grow on you. It *seems* that way.
I almost bailed on it after a few episodes, because my taste for shows like that is particular, and they can easily veer into the "this is just annoying and I don't like these people" territory for me. Example: I don't like Seinfeld.
However, "The Comeback" isn't actually absurdist. What's fucking brilliant is that it seems absurd because the reality it's exploring IS completely absurd. This is a lightly humourized version of the very real, very batshit, fever-dream experience of making TV shows.
So it's actually the opposite of Arrested Development, which is absurd people doing largely mundane crap in absurd ways. The characters in The Comeback are absurd because Hollywood is absurd, and normal people have to behave absurdly within it to succeed. Kudrow's character is absurd because she's vapid and succumbs so easily to the constant intense absurd pressures of being a middle aged woman in Hollywood.
It is at many times uncomfortable to watch, and if you think it's goofy absurdist comedy, then the dark shit will feel out of place and tonally excessive. But if you instead take it more at face value as almost realism, then the dark shit comes off more as poignant commentary, and the comedy is the bone that Kudrow throws you to make it digestible, because that's her style.
Anyway, that's my long take on "The Comeback" and my solid agreement with RuPaul that it is probably the most underrated comedy I have ever seen. And the provenance and history alone make it worth checking out.
You might still watch the first episode and think "Malcat has shit taste in tv, this is just kind of annoying and dumb". DH wasn't able to get into season 1 at all, which is interesting because Kudrow has been quoted as saying that a lot of straight white guys just couldn't watch it.
