June 28, 2005

"The Comeback."

Are you watching "The Comeback" -- the HBO comedy series that stars Lisa Kudrow? I just discovered it on HBO On Demand yesterday and proceeded to watch all four available episodes. It's excellent. Kudrow's a terrific comic actress -- you really sympathize with her as she's being humiliated, even when most of her problems are in her head or a result of her own doing. When she names her puppy "Lucy," you don't need her to say she loves Lucille Ball. You could already see that.

Anyway, she plays an actress from a once-popular sitcom who's being relegated to a secondary, older-woman role on a new sitcom and who's simultaneously making a reality show about her comeback. We see a lot of the "raw footage" for the reality show and the behind-the-scenes work on the sitcom, so there is a lot of mockery of two types of TV shows.

Note: I've only watched one episode of "Friends."

MORE: Here's an interview with Kudrow about the show.

5 comments:

Rick Lee said...

Kudrow and her co-creator of the show were on Fresh Air with Terri Gross a few days ago. It was very interesting. I had always heard that, contrary to type, Kudrow was the smartest of the Friends cast. This was evident in this interview. The Comeback is a very smart, sophisticated satire. It's one of those comedies (like the British version of The Office) that is very funny yet terribly painful to watch. God it's a cringe-fest.

Rick Lee said...

You can listen to the Fresh Air show here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4714131&sourceCode=RSS

Ann Althouse said...

Kudrow went to Vassar. He father was a doctor and she considered going into medical research before she discovered comedy improv. (I got that from IMDB.)

Ron said...

I loved her in "Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion" even though she was still playing her "Friends" character.

Ann Althouse said...

"Romy & Michelle" was just great. Since I never watched "Friends" -- except that one time when Brad Pitt was on -- the fact that she might have been like her "Friends" character had no effect on me.