The father of fifteen minute famewhoring, Andy Warhol, couldn’t have devised a better set up: A sitcom about a desperate reality show star that’s set amidst a doomed Three’s Company-flavored-for-the-00s sitcom (idiotically titled Room and Bored) — that stars — in real life — a star from Friends, one of television history’s most successful sitcoms.

My mind reeled.

Here’s what I’ll miss most about Lisa Kudrow and her series The Comeback:

1. The Entertaining Mind Fuck. I loved watching a thirty-minute show that miraculously managed to generate equal portions laughter, compassion, horror and disdain — all in one short swoop.

Ibsen couldn’t have done it better. Big chunks of time would pass while watching the show before I snapped to and realized that I hadn’t been laughing — and shouldn’t I have been? And that sort of head scratching made me think about, and appreciate the show even more. There was a lot to, ultimately, cherish. The show just needed time to reveal its skewed direction.

2. Lisa Kudrow’s Supernatural Talent for depicting narcissim in a manner that made it impossible not to squirm and see yourself in her character. And really, admit it! Who couldn’t identify with Valerie Cherish’s fierce desire to be popular — liked and loved? Or her self-help-bookish self-realizations? A prime one occurring mid-season when she confessed to her reality show’s cameras, while lolling in a huge bubble bath, surrounded by dozens of glowing candles, that it was time to “finally focus on what’s really important in life. — Me.”

Kudrow delivered her character with a muttering, sometimes wounded nonchalance — a jittery, California-Breezy style — assumed to appear hip, New Age-spiritual and ultimately (in her character’s mind) void of any need for approval. A feat of dramatic genius and finely honed comedic timing. In one of the opening episodes, when Valerie is emotionally hurt after a fellow actor ‘no-shows’ on the “special cast bonding lunch” that she’s thoughtfully pre-arranged, Cherish refuses to discuss the snub on tape. She explains to her director that to do so would “give the idea that she was hurt by it.” That moment was brilliant and golden, crazy and sad. And cemented my series-long love affair.

3. When Worlds Collide: The Despicable Nemesis Paulie G. When not gorging-to-being-puke-primed on beer and pizza, humilating cast members with frat boy boorishness, or procuring bathroom blow jobs from self-spanking Hollywood hookers — Valerie’s antagonist, Room and Bored’s unfettered and unapologetic co-head writer, Paulie G. (played with slovenly perfection by Second City’s Lance Barber) was the symbol of everything Valerie was not. As she announced, in an early-season episode — lunching with a critic from TV Guide — her show, The Comeback, would “buck the trend” of reality TV’s obsession with “sex and degredation” and depict self-love and “dignity” (this, coming shortly after Cherish was paired with a dwarf personal assistant to “help with the show’s numbers.”) Killjoy Paulie G. was always on hand to block and foil every step Cherish took on her dogged walk towards sanitized glowingness and goodness. Until (almost) the bitter end he remained the rotten egg in Cherish’s Easter basket.

4. The Hair. Not since Margaret Thatcher’s bullet proof do has a hair style revealed so much about character. Valerie Cherish has good hair — thus she exists. Or good wig, as The Washington Post’s eagle-eyed style maven Robin Givhan noted in her hair-splitting deconstruction of Kudrow’s character’s long red locks — described in her column as having “painstakingly organized curls that have been flipped back and away from her face. The hair appears Breck Girl clean, devoid of the styling products now used to give hair an informal, slightly messy appearance. Hers is hair meant to be tossed in slow motion during the opening montage of Baywatch.” If only Valerie Cherish was so lucky — to have landed a spot on the 90s, porn-infected Baywatch — that time leap would have put her one decade ahead of where her Hollywood head vibrated — lost somewhere in the 80s.

5. And Then There’s…Maude — I Mean Mickey. Every starlet’s noggin deserves a hairstylist as devoted and retro-homo as Cherish’s long-time friend Mickey — her defining image maker, from her two-decades-old (he continued to set her hair with gigantic, beer can-sized rollers — remember those?) original hit show I’m It. Actor Robert Michael Morris played Mickey with bullseye-accurate flamboyance, and often, for long stretches, was the only character on The Comeback delivering laugh-out-loud moments. And always of the best sort — small, zingy asides, that you’d catch out of the sweep of your radar — and savor, later, after digesting the crazy swirl of pathos that was All Things Valerie Cherish. Theirs was an accurately depicted, hills-old, straight woman/gay man relationship: Hetero queen as center of the solar system, gay male honorable mention as handmaid to the black hole sun.

Some of my favorite Mickey moments: The Southern Belle-like, snap-flap opening of a Chinese handheld fan (”Two dollars in Chinatown … I’ve got a drawer full of them!”) during a hot ride in the backseat of Valerie’s car. Attempting yoga, for a milisecond, in a gigantic, Liz Taylor-borrowed, black kaftan — complete with matching black sun visor.

Finally, given a bit of meat to chew in the show, there was the sublime confrontation — when Mickey cornered Valerie outside a Starbucks to ask if she’d disclosed to a cast member that he was gay – because he couldn’t figure out why someone would have assumed such a thing. I can’t recall laughing that hard at my TV since Roseanne Barr delivered the Star Spangled Banner at a Mets game 12 years ago. Why? Well, recognition — over the years I’ve had the drop jaw experience of watching closeted guys go into a quandry as to how someone “guessed” they were queer. Though admitedly no one was quite as out of touch with reality as dear Mickey.

And that’s a good secret to end this homage with. Recognition. It’s what made The Comeback so good and painfully disturbing for the viewers who actually stuck with it. (There’s no word yet if HBO will pick it up for a second season, or if Kudrow even wants to commit). Ironically, narcissism is the one defining condition that is, more and more, bringing all of us together. It explains our hypocrisy when we complain that “the greedy Republicans just want it all for themselves.” And it makes the world of entertainment — of which we shun our complicity — spin so brazenly: “Look what that crazy mother fucker is willing to do on Fear Factor this week!” And the ratings soar!

Andy was right, we all will be famous for (at the very least) fifteen minutes — I just hope Lisa Kudrow will claim a little bit more time before her fame meter stops ticking.