Joanna Gold: Last News

use tragedy as a launching pad for laughter, it’s always a hit-or-miss proposition – and this show hits more often than not, albeit a bit unevenly.Airing Sundays at 8:30 p.m., “I Love That For You” follows Joanna Gold (Bayer, who also created the show based on her own experience with childhood leukemia), an Ohio woman who dealt with childhood cancer. The adult Joanna, who’s now in her 30s, is in robust health, but she’s been coddled by her parents and still lives with them while working at Costco.

, Vanessa Bayer has co-created and is starring in her first original series,, which is loosely inspired by the actress’ own childhood battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. On the Showtime comedy, Bayer plays an aspiring home-shopping program host named Joanna Gold, who has overcome her own childhood battle with cancer and is determined to be a top seller like her idol, longtime SVN host Jackie Stilton (Molly Shannon). But when her job at SVN is on the line, she says that her cancer has returned, much to the surprise of her colleagues as well as her own parents, played by Bess Armstrong and Matt Malloy. “This character had childhood leukemia and I had childhood leukemia,” Bayer tells ET, explaining that she always wanted to write something about that time in her life because not only was it a difficult time but it proved to be interesting and darkly funny, especially in the way she was treated.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe world of home-shopping networks is one that seems ripe for comedy; the scenes in “Hacks,” for instance, in which Deborah Vance goes on television to hawk garments and jewelry are some of that show’s most cleverly observed. The challenge, as with all things in fiction, is getting the details right.That’s the first place that “I Love That for You,” Showtime’s new comedy set at a fictional TV channel, falls short. Starring and co-created by “Saturday Night Live” standout Vanessa Bayer, “I Love That for You” weaponizes its central presence’s askew vision of life as a series of petty humiliations, most easily borne by making oneself the butt of the joke.

It’s been a minute since Vanessa Bayer left the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2017, and now she’s returning to television to headline her own half-hour comedy for Showtime.

Vanessa Bayer is starring in and executive producing a new half-hour comedy for Showtime inspired by her childhood battle with leukemia, ET has the exclusive first look at her co-star, Jenifer Lewis. In, Bayer plays Joanna Gold, a woman who dreams of becoming a host at a home-shopping channel just like her idol and star, Jackie (Molly Shannon). Lewis rounds out the trio as Patricia, the icy, enigmatic founder and CEO of the network where Jackie works.