Review: The Comeback, “Valerie Has a Secret” | Season 3, Episode 2

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Earlier this week, OpenAI announced that it was shutting down its AI video-generation app Sora—and Disney, accordingly, announced that it was ending its partnership with OpenAI. For those of us broadly opposed to generative AI, the news brings a bit of a relief, possibly even hope for larger collapse in the nearer-than-expected future. I won’t let myself believe that AI is going away anytime soon, or that its ongoing damage to both the climate and a generation of children’s brain development will be easy to reverse, but there are reasons to believe a shift is coming.

It’s impossible to tell right now if we’ll look back on The Comeback season three as prescient in its depiction of the AI wave, but it seems to me this revival was written, filmed, and put to screen at the ideal time. AI is in a transitional era right now—the idea of a sitcom written by AI doesn’t feel too far outside the realm of possibility, but AI gradually loosening its stranglehold on the culture in the next few years also feels possible. If we look back on AI in Hollywood as a silly fad at best and a brief but dangerous pyramid scheme at worst, will this season’s central storyline feel like a time capsule? By airing now, the show is outrunning that risk of dating itself.

And so far season three’s depiction of the various attitudes toward AI strikes me as both balanced and realistic, even if its “Valerie Cherish stars in an AI sitcom” premise still skews a tad high-concept for my taste. The AI backlash is already well-established in this world, dating back to the 2023 protest scene, but Billy’s insistence on pushing forward and ignoring potential legality issues to pursue a gimmicky opportunity seems right. And Val’s own interest in the project tracks; she has no inherent interest in AI and would prefer working with writers, but she’s excited about the idea of working on something new, especially with a guaranteed lead role that isn’t a traditional sitcom wife. As long as she’s not risking getting canceled, she’s on board.