Lisa Kudrow returns as the fearless actress in ‘The Comeback’

She found it in the emergence of artificial intelligence in Hollywood. In the third season of her award-winning series, Kudrow confronts the backlash that could occur if computer programs started writing television shows. Would writers become extinct? Could other crafts be affected?

“Our goal was to get it on the air before a studio admitted they were using AI,” says Michael Patrick King, “The Comeback’s” executive producer and co-creator.

“I think that’s a ways off,” Kudrow adds. But they still wanted to be in the “what if?” phase.

In the new episodes, Cherish has an opportunity to star in another sitcom — a win, considering she already explored reality television and now samples the world of podcasts and bone-dry budgets.

Executives are cagey about the writing staff (it has a couple of humans), but they don’t let on about what’s up with “How’s That?!,” a sitcom that finds Cherish as the proprietor of a bed and breakfast. She’s eager, particularly since it could bring her back to her roots.

“We felt the world may have escalated to the point of the desperation that Valerie was in in the first season,” King says. “We’re living in a nightmare of what could possibly happen to all of us. There’s no actual hands-on experience yet of people working with it.”

An AI future in Hollywood is possible, Kudrow says.

“I firmly believe an audience will always let you know what it likes and what it doesn’t," she says. "There might be some AI entertainment that audiences like, but it’s not going to take over everything.”

In the last season of “The Comeback” (more than a decade ago), reality television was viewed as the threat. Insiders wondered how it might affect scripted programming. As with the rise of AI, King says, “the comedy comes from the fear.”

Cherish is on the side of “no AI” when the third season begins. She’s about to star on Broadway in “Chicago” (in the dumbed-down, “Real Housewives” version) and working on her podcast, “Cherish the Time.”

“It feels like a natural aging process,” Kudrow says. “She won an Emmy, and there were opportunities for her and a lot of things that didn’t work out. But there’s slightly more confidence … but still the desperation. She’s been adrift for a few years when we meet her again.”

The idea of starring in a new sitcom seems ideal, particularly because “the excesses are going away,” King says. “We used to (have) 23 writers in a writing room and 23 episodes. And then, in the second 10 years, it was down to one writer writing a show for eight episodes. It just keeps shrinking.”

Cherish knows that and wants to be part of a renaissance for sitcoms. Shot at Warner Bros. (the home to Kudrow’s hit series, “Friends” and Seth Rogen’s “The Studio”), the producers didn’t want it to be too “inside baseball.”

“She doesn’t even know ‘Friends’ exists,” King says of Cherish. “She certainly doesn’t know ‘The Studio’ does. We kept going, ‘What is Valerie’s world?’”

That turned out to be whatever she pursues. Because she’s also the subject of her own documentary, she’s never off camera.

For Kudrow, that’s a plus. “You don’t know when the camera is on you, so you’ve got to be there listening and talking,” she says.

Getting back into Valerie mode wasn’t difficult, she adds. “When we were working, I did find sometimes she was being a little too angry," Kudrow says. It was more me making an argument than her.”

When Kudrow shows up as Cherish, “it takes your breath away because it’s like a different being,” King says. “It’s very instinctual.”

While a fourth season always is possible, “The Comeback” is now billed as the “Final Season.”

“It took us 11 years for the key to show up,” King says.

If there is another visit, Kudrow says, “Valerie will be digital. She can come back all you want.”