It’s the last hurrah for “The Comeback” co-creators Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, and this time the duo is tackling Hollywood’s existential crisis around AI.
And who better to usher audiences through this real-world quandary than Valerie Cherish, played by Kudrow?
In Season 3 of the HBO comedy series, the often delusional but always endearing actress-turned-reality star finds herself as the star of a new sitcom. The twist is it’s written by AI.
King told TheWrap at the series’ Los Angeles premiere that the duo had been waiting for a topical reason to revive the cult favorite series. Over a decade after Season 2, the threats of AI seemed like a perfect time to see Valerie against the machine.
“When we did the very first ‘Comeback,’ way back 20 years ago, it was about the threat of reality TV; and then the next time, it was about streaming and dark prestige cable shows, and how would Valerie fit into that?” the co-creator explained. “The minute Lisa and I realized, Oh, we have another giant threat —maybe the biggest threat yet — we thought, what would Valerie do with that?”
The “Friends” star assured TheWrap that nothing in the series was actually written by AI, though. Her fictional sitcom, “How’s That?,” uses an AI assistant instead of actual writers, which poses unique challenges for the seasoned TV star.
After satirizing the tool’s potential impact on Hollywood for a full season, King concluded that AI is no match for humans in the arts.
“What we tried to say was that it is really no match for humans. There’s always going to be a spark that AI can’t do,” he said.
“It’s all a cautionary tale. It’s a fantasy that we’re doing about AI. We know enough to know that it’s coming. We know enough to know that it will impact Hollywood the way other trends have impacted Hollywood. Hopefully it will not be as detrimental,” he added.
For Kudrow, she echoed similar sentiments about how the technology will affect the industry moving forward.
“There’s going to be a lot of corrections,” she told TheWrap. “Use of AI, and then a lot of corrections, and then we’ll need people. I think you just do.”
The “No Good Deed” actress said the most surprising part of putting Valerie Cherish’s red wig back on was how easy it was to be her. More than 11 years since we last saw Valerie, she still has cameras following her, but this time it’s via a social media manager, played by Ella Stiller.
“The most fun thing about that character is her name, to start,” King joked. “Her name is Patience, and we gave Valerie Patience because she didn’t have any.”
“We’re used to Valerie with reality cameras following her around, and you don’t need that now,” Kudrow added. “It’s a social media person, who only Valerie has every single day for no reason. She’s not doing anything. It’s really not required, but she’s Valerie.”
The first episode of the series opens with Valerie and her social media manager Patience on the front lines of the SAG-AFTRA strike. The sitcom actress asks then-president of the actor’s union Fran Drescher for a picture “for her socials.”
King said he and Kudrow were having lunch during the strike, wishing they could place Valerie in that world — so when they revived the series three years later, they chose to revisit that moment in time.
“Fran was so gracious and generous, I really wanted her to do that moment, because it’s such a time capsule, and it would bring people legitimately to that moment,” King said. “The thing that I remember most about the end of the strike is Fran Drescher saying, ‘in three years, we’re going to have to renegotiate this, because AI is coming for all of us.’ So here we are, 2026 and it’s coming for all of us.”
“The Comeback” premieres Sunday on HBO and HBO Max, with new episodes airing through May 10.
