’The Big Leap’ and ‘Queens’ joins ‘Hacks’ and ‘Girls5eva’ in rooting for a second chance at stardom

Earlier this yr, “Hacks” and “Girls5eva” grew to become word-of-mouth smashes by dangling the promise of a second or third act in entrance of its performer protagonists. With the HBO Max dramedy “Hacks,” we longed for Jean Good’s Deborah Vance, a Vegas-based comic modeled partly on Joan Rivers, to interrupt out of her consolation zone and check out a extra trustworthy routine that may communicate to the tens of millions too younger to have seen her on her ‘70s sitcom. Peacock’s “Girls5eva” — named after a one-hit-wonder woman group that fizzled on the flip of the millennium — channels this second of countless superstar comebacks much more immediately, its 40-something quartet (performed by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell) satisfied that they nonetheless have one thing to supply the world, particularly now that they’ve received extra to say than “give up flying planes at my coronary heart” on Sept. 10, 2001.