Party Down
director | Rob Thomas
starring | Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Jane Lynch, Ryan Hansen etc.

I tweeted about this show earlier this week and it’s been one of the few new American comedies I’ve been enjoying this year (the other is Better Off Ted, which I’ll write about later). Party Down (terrible name, but never mind) is the latest project from Rob Thomas, creator of the fantastic Veronica Mars, and it’s about a group of caterers -- made up of embittered showbiz has-beens and aspiring stars -- working parties around Los Angeles. Only two episodes have aired so far (you can watch them at the usual places) so it’s probably too early to judge but I’ve got a good feeling about this one. It’s being shown on some U.S. network called Starz which, like HBO, is a subscription channel which means the show can get away with swearing, nudity, and no laughter track. Just looking at the Starz website it seems they also show the Crash TV series which looks hilariously bad. It would certainly be an achievement if they could make it worse than the original movie. Dennis Hopper as a ‘maverick record producer’. Fucks sake.

Anyway, Party Down. It’s good. Not great, but it’s good. I reckon it’s still finding it’s feet (the third episode -- airing this weekend -- is touted as being the funniest yet); some of the jokes are a little overplayed and ‘the boss’ character (played by Ken Marino) needs to stop using Zach Braff’s voice and Steve Carell’s mannerisms. The rest of the cast though -- which includes many familiar faces from Veronica Mars in guest spots -- is superb: Jane Lynch (as usual) is great as the mother hen of the group, Lizzy Caplan is suitably adorable, and Ryan Hansen -- though he’s basically playing the same character he played in VM -- is so good as the Obnoxious Blonde Guy it doesn’t really matter. Here’s a trailer: