The Comeback

The idea of the show came during a friendly lunch between Lisa and Michael. Both of them were not looking to work on a new show, but then Lisa came up with an idea that she had been thinking of about an actress that is phony and so desperate to get back to the spotlight that she agrees to be in a reality show called "The Comeback". Michael thought the idea was brilliant, and the lunch became a 4 hour meeting. According to Lisa, after that the entire show was practically done.

The roles of Mickey and Jane were written specifically for Robert Michael Morris and Laura Silverman.

Michael Patrick King stated to The Writers Guild Foundation in 2012 that none of the actions or dialogs in the show were improvised. He said that the improvisation happened only during the writing process. During their meetings, Lisa improvised dialogs and actions as Valerie while Michael tried to transcript the most of it that he could. For Michael those were the toughest moments and he really thought about hiring a stenographer to do that because everything Lisa did and said during improvisation process was so rich that he was always afraid lose any of it.