Not much of a "Comeback" for an old friend

Is it too soon to talk about a "Friends" curse?

Courteney Cox Arquette did have that nice little decorating show with her husband. Jennifer Aniston's film career and David Schwimmer's future in animated voice-over work may be too young to judge. But the true star is forged in the heat of a weekly TV series. And it's hard not to think of "Joey" while watching Lisa Kudrow bomb in HBO's "The Comeback."

Debuting at 9:30 this Sunday night, following the return of "Entourage" at 9, "The Comeback" has a sweet spot on the schedule. It's aimed at women who saw every episode of "Desperate Housewives" and are now at loose ends.

HBO could use some pink in its cheeks. Not since "Sex and the City" has the premium cabler had a series with huge female pull, and "The Comeback" is created and executive produced by former "SATC" show runner Michael Patrick King.

That ends the similarities. Where "SATC" worked a range of emotion, "The Comeback" is relentlessly pickle-pussed. In place of the ensemble cast that gave "Sex" its drive is a narrowly focused star vehicle whose star seems indifferent to anything so commercial as providing a few laughs.

Kudrow portrays Valerie Cherish, a slightly over-the-hill actress who once had the good luck to star in a hit series called "I'm It!" that aired from 1989 to 1992.

Now it's 2005 and Cherish is up for a part in a frothy new network comedy. Her preparation and subsequent labors are taped documentary-style by a crew whose task is to create a reality show called "The Comeback" out of her comeback.

Reality show: The term sounds cheesy and decrepit, the last refuge of low-budget cable channels or summer lineups at hapless networks. No wonder the producers of "The Amazing Race" and "American Idol" prefer "alternate series" and "talent contest."

Still, you'd expect King, Kudrow and their co-producers to do something clever — riff on the phony conventions of so-called reality, or have Cherish turn the tables on her antagonists.

But watching "The Comeback" was like a night with the living dead. King and Kudrow, who co-wrote the series, apparently think humor still can be wrung from the predictable mishaps, furtive asides and personal humiliations that constitute reality TV.

We meet Cherish as she's at home for her first reality taping. There are some strenuous efforts at background comedy involving a stereotypically hostile Hispanic housekeeper (Lillian Hurst) and a suppressed argument between Cherish and her husband (Damian Young) about plumbing.

Later, Cherish goes to audition and discovers she's one of several candidates for a comeback — the others being real-life ex-TV stars Marilu Henner and Kim Fields.

Their response to Cherish's clueless preening is cold and dismissive, as is the behavior of nearly everyone she encounters, from her agent to network executives to the two co-creators of the comedy that she successfully lands, "Room and Bored."

Cherish's triumph is short-lived. Initially cast as one of a trio of frolicsome roommates, she's demoted to play the older Aunt Sassy, upstairs neighbor. She stands helplessly in the background, dressed in a frumpy tracksuit, while younger and sexier fellow actors lounge in the foreground for a publicity shoot.

Still more degrading scenes are to come, including one where Cherish's husband pays a noisy visit to the toilet while she's doing her video diary. Pretty soon, you wonder just what "The Comeback" is trying to say about middle-age women in Hollywood. That life stinks? That being a survivor means a life of kidding yourself?

Another possibility is that Cherish deserves what's happening. Her chief attribute is a calloused optimism that repeatedly excludes other people's feelings and problems except when the urge to micromanage hits. It's the dark side of Phoebe from "Friends."

In that show, Kudrow occasionally let slip her character's mask of ditzy helpfulness to reveal a core self-absorption. The same egotism is on full display in "The Comeback," minus warmth. There are times when the camera lets us glimpse Cherish's vulnerability, then quickly slips away, leaving only the blank face of ambition.

It's hard to tell if Kudrow has more to reveal. Like Matt LeBlanc in "Joey," she's in a vehicle that diminishes her potential. Unlike LeBlanc, she co-furnished the ride.

The series that "The Comeback" closely resembles in theme is HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." But King and Kudrow lack Larry David's nasty zest. On TV, passive-aggressive isn't nearly as much fun to watch as plain old aggressive.

The boys are back in town

If heartlessness is just what the doctor ordered, then HBO's Sunday is the prescription, from the bracing cruelty in "Entourage" to the morose low self-esteem of "The Comeback." True masochists will now have to watch "Six Feet Under" at 9 p.m. beginning Monday. The show has been kicked from its Sunday perch for its final season.

Me, I'll take the crew from Queens, N.Y. Though the ultra-dudes of "Entourage" may appear emotionally and socially frozen in time, they're slowly learning to finesse that complex, wily place known as Tinseltown.

Back from three months of doing an indie film, rising star Vince (Adrian Grenier), business adviser Eric (Kevin Connolly), Vince's half-brother Drama (Kevin Dillon) and jack-of-all-trades Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) return to Los Angeles.

Some things are the same. Drama continues to reek of macho desperation, unable to forget his brief flirtation with fame. Turtle is still an inept wheeler-dealer.

The episode plots are loose and the overall story arc — about Vince being cast as "Aquaman" in a movie rumored to be directed by James Cameron — isn't high art.

And that's the pleasure of "Entourage." The series is pure situational humor, moving at the same pace and attention span as its testosterone-driven characters. The biting depictions of Hollywood are a mean thrill; as agent Ari Gold, Jeremy Piven makes us revel in his harassed cynicism and devious joy.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com