Valerie Cherish is not finished yet.
HBO’s critically beloved comedy, “The Comeback,” starring Lisa Kudrow, will return for a third season next year, more than a decade after its second season concluded, the network announced on Friday.
The show centers on the challenges of Valerie Cherish, a former network TV star turned reality show performer (Season 1, which premiered in 2005) and then a premium cable network dramedy actress (Season 2, which premiered in 2014).
Over the last two decades, “The Comeback” has become something of a cult classic, and Kudrow’s depiction of Cherish — her big red hair, her earnest demeanor, her totally unique turns-of-phrase — remains a meme in present day. Earlier this year, Variety published a list titled “The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the 21st Century,” and ranked Kudrow in “The Comeback” at No. 4.
The show, however, has never been broadly popular. HBO canceled “The Comeback” after it premiered in 2005 because of low ratings, before bringing it back — to the surprise of the industry — for a second season nearly a decade later. The season got a rapturous response from some critics but the result was the same: The ratings were very low.
The network gave few details on the premise of the third season, but Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, the “Sex and the City” producer who cocreated the show, said Cherish was gearing up for another turn in show business.
“Valerie Cherish has found her way back to the current television landscape,” King and Kudrow said in a joint statement. “Neither of us are surprised she did.”
The show will have to navigate its third season without one of its key stars: Robert Michael Morris, the actor who played Valerie Cherish’s loyal hairdresser Mickey, died in 2017.
The show will go into production this summer, and the network said this would be the show’s final season.
King is also the executive producer of “And Just Like That…,” the “Sex and the City” revival that is currently streaming on Max for its third season.
John Koblin covers the television industry for The Times.
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