With the success of The Office (British and American), Borat and Extras, uncomfortable humor is very in right now. But it’s a delicate balance between funny and just plain sad, one that Lisa Kudrow’s post-Friends comeback vehicle The Comeback was never able to achieve.

Kudrow’s character, former sitcom star Valerie Cherish, was so desperate for approval, so achingly tragic in her quest to reclaim her former glory, that it was actually difficult to watch. Cringing behind my pillow, I could only take solace in the knowledge that it was all scripted.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for Bravo’s newest reality series, Hey Paula, in which former pop star and current American Idol sweetheart Paula Abdul stumbles and mumbles about, desperate for approval, achingly tragic in her quest to reclaim her former glory. It’s physically difficult to watch her increasingly erratic behavior without turning away, so embarrassing is it to behold.

After an almost psychotically incoherent series of TV interviews, the media wondered, was she drunk? High? Crazy? And it’s hard to say whether she’s straight-up fucked up or just exhausted from lack of sleep. In subsequent weeks, I guess we’ll find out, but in the words of Valerie Cherish, “I don’t wanna see that!”