Mirror, mirror: A Wknd list of the best shows about making TV

The behind-the-scenes drama of making of a TV show can make for the perfect script. Think of how Tina Fey repurposed real-life tales from the sets of Saturday Night Live, for the many seasons of her deeply hilarious show, 30 Rock (2006-13). Here’s a look at three must-watch series to make time for too.

PREMIUM

The Comeback (2005; 2014)

Lisa Kudrow of the sitcom Friends plays herself, now in her 50s. The plot shows her struggling to stay relevant and find a substantial role. She is finally cast as a neighbour in a new sitcom full of beautiful young men and women.

As her character on that show within the show becomes increasingly clownish and pathetic — she’s the desperate older woman next door, played for uncomfortable laughs — she struggles to maintain her dignity on set. Meanwhile, around her, the television industry sets about consuming and transforming another group of young actors.

It’s a searing, stripped-bare look at the discomfort of being both young-desirable and aging-undesirable, in the entertainment industry. And it’s the perfect 21st century companion watch for now-grown fans of Kudrow’s original hit.

Reboot (2022)

A queer Indie filmmaker decides to reboot her estranged father’s sitcom, a family-friendly early-Aughts show where everything always worked out in the end. The young woman wants to tell it more like it was, growing up with an emotionally unavailable parent who was never around.

Then her father turns up, reinstated in a senior role at the production studio. Their history adds layers to the tension in the now-evolving reboot script. Their different worlds are most evident in the writers’ room. Her father’s team are all of his vintage, all white, all male but for a token woman; her team is made up of a group of young people each hyper-woke in their own way, identifying at various different points on the spectrums of race and gender.

The cast of the father’s original show, meanwhile, is back, and their lives have been full of substance abuse, loneliness and dysfunction. The female lead has married the king of a distant land, only to find that even he isn’t immune to sleeping with his secretary.

BoJack Horseman (2014-2020)

This unique animated show follows a quietly despairing half-horse-half-man former TV star, as he lives out his post-fame life in Hollywoo. He wants to write a memoir, dreams of starring in a serious movie, but between his childhood trauma and later layers of dysfunction, he is erratic, undependable and self-sabotaging. Meanwhile, around him, crazed quests for fame play out, among a new generation; ghosts from his own past return to haunt him. In his country at large, there are mass shootings (#ThoughtsAndPrayers), racism and loneliness. The only happy people seem to be either pretending, or oblivious. Chief among the latter is his currently beloved successor, an always-smiling Labrador-Retriever-man named Mr Peanutbutter.