Chelsea Handler's no-holds-barred documentary series hits Netflix in January

By Parker Hall November 18, 2015

Comedian Chelsea Handler will star in a four-part Netflix documentary series called Chelsea Does, to be released in January 2016. First announced in 2014, the documentary miniseries is the first of two upcoming projects Handler has ruminating at the streaming company.

In the new documentary miniseries, the comedian will use her wry sense of humor and self-deprecation to investigate topics and ask questions that a large portion of the American public are too afraid to, focusing each installment on one topic. The four planned episodes span marriage, racism, Silicon Valley, and drug use.

An unscripted series, Chelsea Does will be directed by Academy Award-nominated documentarian Eddie Schmidt (This Film is Not Yet Rated) and produced by Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom).

The 40-year-old funny woman from Livingston, New Jersey, is most famous for her late night talk show on the E! network, Chelsea Lately, in which she and a roundtable of comedians would discuss pop-culture events. The talk show ran for seven years from 2007-2014, and featured many of the industry’s most prominent comedians. Handler eventually let her contract with E! expire, went off air, and began speaking to Netflix, inking a deal last year to host the four-part documentary series for the company, along with a forthcoming talk show.

As far as what her future talk show will look like, no new details about the show have emerged since the deal was signed, so it’s anybody’s guess how it will work on the less-than-traditional network. That said, we do know who will run the show; executives at Netflix have tapped producer Bill Wolf (The View, Rachel Maddow) to helm the project.

Fans of Handler who are looking for streaming entertainment to tide them over until the new documentary series and talk show hit the Internet can still check out her hilarious stand up special out on Netflix, or watch highlights of her old E! show here.

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Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…

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