So much for Lisa Kudrow's Comeback.
HBO has canceled the former Friends star's mockumentary comedy series about a washed-up TV star looking to revive her flagging career.
"[Cocreator] Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow developed a uniquely original series. However, we looked at our schedule, and, given our future commitments, we felt we would not be able to give the show the support it needed," an HBO publicist said Tuesday.
Or, as Kudrow's Valerie Cherish might point out, that's network code for "the ratings stunk up the joint."
After winning Emmy as kooky Phoebe on Friends, which ended its decade-long run in May 2004, the 42-year-old Kudrow signed a deal with HBO to develop The Comeback with King and John Melfi, both of whom had been writers and executive producers on Sex and the City. Cherish was based on a character Kudrow dreamed up while a member of the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improvisational troupe.
The comedy series featured a show-within-a-show concept, in which a documentary team for a reality series (also titled The Comeback) chronicled the has-been fortysomething Cherish as she landed a role on a new sitcom and played surrogate mom to her younger, self-absorbed castmates, all while suffering constant humiliation from her nemesis, head writer, Paulie G.
HBO ordered a 13-episode season. The series debuted in June to mixed reviews and an audience of 1.5 million viewers, about half what a typical Sopranos delivers to the network.
The show's Sept. 4 season finale, in which an awkward Cherish goes on The Tonight Show to plug the debut of The Comeback reality series, only drew 920,000 viewers, per Nielsen Media Research.