ABSTRACT
The landscapes of television programming and celebrity culture have changed radically in recent years, with The Comeback (2005–2014) serving to capture and comment on changes in both. In the show, Lisa Kudrow plays a fallen star (Valerie Cherish) so desperate for a career revival that she takes a degrading sitcom role and appears on her own reality TV show-within-a-show. Although HBO dropped the dark comedy after one season, they reinstated it nine years later with another pointedly reflexive premise: still desperate for a career revival, Cherish agrees to play a monstrous version of herself in a HBO show-within-a-show (one based around the events of the first season). Through an examination of The Comeback and its related extra-textual discourses, O’Meara examines the show’s ‘hall of mirrors’ relationship with the media landscape. O’Meara argues that HBO’s decision to create a second season demonstrates a keen understanding of contemporary television culture: by 2014 The Comeback had a small cult following, but unfamiliar audiences also had greater experiences of reality TV, stale sitcoms, and HBO itself – and were thus better primed to receive its various critiques. This chapter explores the disorienting overlaps between actual television programming and The Comeback’s various shows-within-a-show, as well as overlaps between Cherish and Kudrow; the former sitcom star who plays her. Overall, the series is shown to orient itself towards a specific audience: those whose familiarity with U.S. television and celebrity culture enables them to appreciate The Comeback’s shrewd meta-commentary.
