“Larry Wilmore, Chelsea and we could all do the same topic,” Ms. Miller said. “We’d have three different points of view and all three would be interesting and funny to watch. There are going to be topics that are perfect Chelsea topics, that she can do better than anybody.”

Ms. Miller deflected any questions about gender in topical comedy before they could be asked. “If it’s about our vaginas, I’m going to seriously hang up,” she said, laughing nonetheless. “Chelsea’s got a brain. That’s what it’s about.”

On the morning after her taping with Charley, Ms. Handler was in the kitchen of her Bel Air mansion, having her hair and makeup done while she reviewed the script she would be filming that afternoon. Near the home’s front door was a giant book of rock ’n’ roll photography, open to a 1970s-era portrait of Bob Dylan; in a den was a vase whose shape was formed from numerous conjoined female breasts.

Ms. Handler said at first that she had “no idea” how long her contract with Netflix ran, though when pressed further she said it was “a minimum of three years,” adding that she took the job seriously.

“This is a TV show,” she explained. “I would take a marriage more lightly.”

Whatever the duration, Ms. Handler cautioned that “Chelsea” “won’t be the show that I want, probably, the first or second day. It’ll take three months for it to be where I’m like, ‘This is great. This is what I want to do.’”

“By the way,” she added, “it becomes clearer and clearer as the show gets closer and closer.”

While her dogs Chunk and Tammy strolled in and out of the kitchen, Ms. Handler pointed to them and said, “That’s what you do when you don’t have children.”

Compared to humans, she said, “Dogs can’t talk, and that’s a whole big bonus.”

Reminded that babies do not talk either, Ms. Handler replied, “Yeah, but then they don’t shut up for the rest of their lives.”