Good news for comedy fans, a major comedy series that first kicked off in 2005 has finally seen its third season announced 11 years after last appearing on screens. Initially canceled after its first season, the show – starring Friends star Lisa Kudrow in arguably her most prominent role since the end of the sitcom – was revived in 2014, before once again going on ice for more than a decade. Now, a third and final season is on the way.
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That’s right, satirical comedy The Comeback is making a comeback! HBO announced that the meta cult comedy co-created by Friends star Kudrow has been greenlit for a third season that will debut next year on HBO and HBO Max. Kudrow will return as Valerie Cherish, a one-time sitcom star who takes another crack at show business via a reality show titled The Comeback. While the release model is perhaps unconventional, it feels oddly fitting that Valerie Cherish is back for one more bow after another decade-long break.
The Season 3 official green light was announced Friday via a hilarious and meta video where Cherish unsuccessfully tries to tape the announcement her fictional show’s final season. Despite it being a mere minute long, Kudrow slips back into Cherish’s idiosyncrasies with such ease and hilarity, we feel as if she never felt. Kudrow and Comeback co-creator Michael Patrick King cheekily commented on the show’s third and last season, “Valerie Cherish has found her way back to the current television landscape. Neither of us are surprised she did.”
The Comeback‘s Revival Mirrors Star Kudrow’s Own Second Act
Returning alongside Kudrow and King for Season 3 of The Comeback are Dan Bucatinsky as Cherish’s publicist, Laura Silverman as the reality TV show producer of the fictional Comeback, and Damian Young as Cherish’s ex-husband. An self-aware and unfliching satire of the reality of being a woman in the entertainment industry, The Comeback‘s return feels particularly pertinent, since when we last saw Valerie Cherish, there had been no #MeToo movement, no industry-altering writer and actors strikes, and the business wasn’t quite as obsessed with spinoffs, sequels, and reboots as it is now. The last decade has undoubtedly provided The Comeback with a plethora of material to sink their comedic teeth into. We’re on the edge of our collective seats to see how Kudrow, King and The Comeback team tackles these topics when Valerie returns to our screens in 2026.
While Kudrow has kept busy since her Emmy-winning turn as Phoebe Buffay in the television phenomenon that was Friends, roles that gave her the opportunity to shine like The Comeback have been scarcer than they should be for the actor. However, last year she starred in two vastly different comedic projects — Apple TV+’s fantastical epic Time Bandits, along with Netflix’s comedy caper No Good Deed. Though neither series was renewed for a second season, both shows were a return to form for Kudrow. The actor doesn’t seem to be slowing either, as there is also a sequel the beloved two-hander Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion in the works. Though Kudrow’s return to the big screen along Romy and Michele co-star Mira Sorvino seems to be slower going, The Comeback has us hoping that we’ll get to see Kudrow reprise yet another memorable role of hers, the underachieving but fabulous Michele.
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Image courtesy of Netflix
