If you're an avid reader of this blog (and there are a few of you), you'll know I have been shouting for some time about the show 'Hacks'.
A HBO comedy drama about the ups and downs of a relationship between an ageing, hard as nails Las Vegas comedian and her smart, bisexual twentysomething writer, it initially had a low key release in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with the first two seasons slipping quietly onto Amazon Prime.
With Jean Smart starring as the comedian Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder as her disaster prone writer Ava Daniels, the show has increasingly attracted word of mouth on this side of the Atlantic as it has hoovered up Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe awards.
After a long wait, the third season of the show finally found its way onto another UK and Irish streaming platform, NowTV and Sky Glass earlier this year as well as on the Sky Max channel in the UK and TG4 in Ireland.
Those who watched the third series will know it ended on one hell of a cliffhanger.
And that is why, like a football fan waiting to watch the TV highlights of their club's latest match, I am going to now warn like a newsreader thst if you don't want to know what happened at the end of Season Three please look away now.
Maybe wait reading this review until you've finished all three seasons?
(SPOILER ALERT!!)
Season Three saw Deborah achieve her dream of becoming the first woman to land her own primetime network TV, late night talk show.
However the comedian seriously put Ava's nose out of joint by preparing to overlook her for the head writer's job on the shoe and looking instead at an old hand who had been doing it for years.
Rightly regarding Deborah's move as an act of betrayal and a mistake that would make their talk show as formulaic as its rivals, Ava finally pulled a stroke to advance her own ambitions by blackmailing Deborah.
Unhappy at being bested by Ava, Season Four finds Deborah at war with her head writer who she constantly tries to undermine.
The tension between the two of them worries their manager Paul W Downs' Jimmy LuSaque Jr who is also trying to adapt to life in LA with his batty former assistant Megan Slater's Kayla Schaefer who is now a partner in his talent agency.
Moving to LA means Deborah is without her trusted assistant, Carl Clemons- Hopkins' Marcus who has remained in Las Vegas and has resigned as COO of her QVC home shopping enterprise to apply his business skills elsewhere.
Deborah's daughter, Kaitlin Olson's DJ and her professional cage fighting son-in-law Paul Felder's Aiden have her first grandchild - a boy.
However she is aghast when she discovers he is being baptised in a Catholic Church and that DJ is a Eucharistic minister.
At first the talk show stutters, trailing well behind its rivals as Ava and Deborah snipe at each other with an inexperienced writing team onboard.
Can they overcome their differences and help the show find its groove in spite of the interference of Helen Hunt's network executive Winnie Landell?
Comedies can sometimes go off the rails pretty quickly when the main characters finally achieve their dreams.
Think 'Only Fools and Horses' when the Trotters finally became millionaires and the second season of 'Cheers' when Sam and Diane were all loved up.
Season four of 'Hacks,' however, just about stays on track because the writing remains sharp and the performances are strong.
The show runners Lucia Aniello, Paul W Downs and Jen Statsky continue to keep a firm grip on its direction, with Samantha Riley, Ariel Karlin, Pat Regan, Aisha Muharrar, Carolyn Lipka, Joe Mande and Andrew Law contributing scripts that amuse.
Aniello, Downs and fellow director Doron Max Hagay also deliver pacy episodes.
There are some decent additions to the cast too like Julianne Nicholson as the TikTok sensation Dance Mom and Robby Hoffman as Jimmy and Kayla's personal assistant.
Smart, though, remains the show's strongest card as an ambitious funny woman with a messy personal history and an occasional ruthless streak.
Einbinder does a good line in wounded pride and a tendency to goof.
There's cameos galore from the likes of Randy Newman, Rosie O'Donnell, Seth Rogen, Kristen Bell, Melissa Etheridge and in a delightful moment, real life talk show host Jimmy Kimmel playing a really nasty version of himself.
Season Four, though, like Season Three of 'The Bear,' doesn't quite hit the highs of previous seasons.
That may be because the show is in transition and the writers may be building future storylines.
But just when you fear 'Hacks' might be getting too comfortable, the show somehow finds a way of generating a big belly laugh and also ups its characters.
That's why it remains one of the best shows around, even when it doesn't quite hit the heights of previous seasons.
Roll on Season Five.
(Episodes of 'The Studio' were made available for streaming on Apple TV+ between March 26-May 21, 2025)
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