Is This Season of ‘Hacks’ Trolling Jerry Seinfeld?

So many movies and television series have shown us the misery of a stand-up comic bombing and the joy of a comedian killing. But skirting cliché, the entertaining third season of “Hacks,” which just concluded, dramatizes a more novel and pointed onstage moment: the crisis of success.

Coming off a triumphant special, the comic Deborah Vance (played with charm and compassion by Jean Smart) is trying out new jokes and is rattled to find her audience laughing at everything, no matter how funny.

Like most comics, she spent her career developing material by gauging the response of the crowd but must confront a problem familiar to superstar stand-ups. Her new fan base has disrupted that artistic process. Smart plays this realization with nuance, never dropping her performative charisma, but gradually showing surprise, and then panic at the idea that she can no longer trust her audience. This reveals the character’s sensitivity while making a contrarian case against the idea that laughter is a purely honest response.

No comic has expressed faith in the crowd as often or with as much conviction as Jerry Seinfeld. He has said that his fame might buy him a few minutes of good will from an audience, but that after that, he must be funny to get a laugh. After seeing him perform many times on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, this always struck me as hard to believe. Maybe if he went onstage and read “The Great Gatsby,” as Andy Kaufman used to do, he might bomb at the Beacon Theater, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Besides being one of the most successful stand-ups alive, Seinfeld is also one of its most prolific talking heads, weighing in on the art in interviews and documentaries. Comedy, to him, is the ultimate meritocracy, perhaps second to (as he has said) the N.F.L.

“Hacks” (on Max) is as obsessed as Seinfeld is with the craft and politics of comedy, and it was especially obvious this past season when its episodes coincided with his epic and relentlessly news-making promotional tour for the Netflix movie “Unfrosted.” At times, the series and the star’s media appearances felt as if they were in conversation with each other, with Seinfeld philosophizing about comedy and “Hacks” providing dissents.