Party Down: Season One DVD Review
Posted by Michael Weyer on 03.31.2010
From the creator of Veronica Mars comes a great parody of the quest for fame amid some wild comic situations.
Party Down Season One DVD
Anchor Bay Entertainment
280 Minutes
There’s something about Hollywood that just makes it so easy to parody. The way everyone in that town takes themselves so utterly serious and puts so much into their need for success, it seems laughable to us outside it. The joke is that from what I read, a lot of TV shows that parody Hollywood have nothing on the true tales of folks under the delusion they can make it and the ones who fail.
The latest to join the list of Hollywood parodies is Party Down, a new Starz channel series. Produced by Rob Thomas (the genius behind such canceled too soon gems like Cupid and Veronica Mars), the show wonderfully sends up the Hollywood life through a bunch of wanna-bes who don’t quite get the idea that their dreams for fame will never work out and their view of Hollywood leads to some delicious wild fun.
The Show
The series is set on Party Down Catering, a company where all the employees have dreams of stardom. Ron (Ken Marino) is the manager with dreams of opening his own fast food joint; Constance (Jane Lynch) is an aging “B” movie queen thinking she can get back on top; Roman (Martin Starr) is an aspiring sci-fi writer; Kyle (Ryan Hansing) is trying to get his break acting; and Casey (Lizzy Caplan) is a would-be stand-up comedian. As the show begins, the company is welcoming back a former employee, Henry (Adam Scott), whose bid for acting stardom was ruined as he could only get a beer commercial with the line “are we having fun yet?” and that’s all anyone knows him from. Together, they take various catering jobs while dreaming of their big breaks, except for Henry, who’s already tried the dream and it didn’t work out.
The show is Thomas’ trademark wit unleashed, with cable allowing him the freedom of cursing and even nudity. The parties are always fun affairs: an investor’s dinner which the gang quickly realize is actually a scam operation; a disastrous Sweet Sixteen party; a post-event party for an adult movie award ceremony; and a dinner celebrating the acquittal of an Armenian mobster (Steven Weber). Each one is overseen by the gang in various problems, quite often involving at least a couple of the guys stoned out of their minds during things. The sheer incredulity of these events makes the show gel well but the actors and their characters also help.
For the most part, the characters are deluded as to their prospects, unable to see their failings and the actors (every one of whom no doubt has their own “working for fame” horror stories) get into them wonderfully. Roman seems the most sane person in the bunch but puts a bit too much into the weight of sci-fi; a great bit is him ready to score with an adult film actress until he takes offense at her confusing sci-fi with fantasy, his lecture driving her away. He tries to claim he’s already written a couple of books (“I’m halfway through four books so I’ve written two!”) and Starr nails the presentation as a guy who’s not as smart as he likes to think he is. Hansing is fun as the dim-witted Kyle, a guy who totally falls for one of his worker’s prank audition calls to the point of shaving his eyebrows and his attempts at revenge are comical to say the least. Lynch is an absolute blast as Constance, whose well-meaning spirit would be better served if she actually understood what she was talking about. One of the best moments is when they do a party for Young Republicans and Lynch goes into a tirade when she hears a black member can’t vote. She doesn’t stop even when she’s told the guy’s not eligible since he’s from Toronto. “And since when is Toronto not a part of the United States of America?!” The actress always nails the fun stuff like talking of her creating an entire back-story for a hooker she played in a TV show despite the fact her character had one line and was identified in the script as “hooker.” She sadly is missing from the last couple of episodes (due to Lynch leaving for Glee) but they have an able replacement in the form of the equally hysterical Jennifer Coolidge.
Ron is clearly a man who’s been at this job way too long while insisting it’s a temporary situation. His cheerleading efforts are marred by the fact he’s usually the first to go crazy when the situation gets out of hand and his own naive ways can suck him into trouble such as when he tries to “audition” for an adult film producer. A great episode has him catering his own 20th high school reunion and realizing for the first time how everyone thought of him as nothing but a total joke, not the popular guy he saw himself as. Caplan continues to show herself as a great rising talent as her Casey wrestles with her attempts at comedy as well as her failing marriage which pushes her and Henry into a relationship. Scott is good as Henry, a man who’s pretty much given up on his dreams (the tired look on his face whenever someone asks him to say his commercial line is perfect weariness) and has resigned himself to this fate of dead-end work. However, his relationship with Casey is wonderfully done, moving from flirting to hook-ups and her annoyance at how he’s given up on his dreams forms a surprising tender heart to the otherwise ludicrous series.
The show has a wonderful off-the-wall vibe with hilarious situations and some nice dialogue. It can seem a bit too crazy (guns drawn at one party) but also can ring surprisingly true like the end of the Sweet Sixteen party and the way the would-be big breaks for the guys crash. The guest stars are good with a lot of Veronica Mars folks popping in like Enrico Colantoni and Jason Dohring, Ed Begley Jr. and J.K. Simmons. George Takei cameos in a party with Roman as the fan boy from hell, pestering him with questions on the mind meld despite Takei’s insistence it wasn’t his thing. Best of all, the final episode has Kristen Bell as an ultra-bitchy rival caterer who gets some classic lines. The finale also sets up some interesting subplots for the second season that shifts the company up a bit.
The situations may seem a bit much but the great cast and witty writing are able to win you over (especially Lynch). The adult themes and presentation also make it wilder than other cable comedies, more realistic as well to hear actual swearing. Overall, the series is a fun ride that sends up the quest for fame while reminding you of how confidence can be equal parts delusion…but it’s certainly a fun thing to watch.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10.0
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1, nothing too fancy but then the show’s not one for wild visuals so it does its job well with no problems.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10.0
Audio: Dolby Surround Sound 5.1, pretty good capturing the dialogue with subtitles in English. Again, not too noteworthy but as the show rests on dialogue, it’s good.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10.0
Bonus Features
Two episodes come with audio commentaries by producers John Enbrom and Dan Ethridge with Alan Scott. The commentaries are pretty lively as they discuss how much of the show is from their own experiences and it’s funny hearing that some of their stories are even crazier than what you see on screen. There are fun tidbits such as how for the Sweet Sixteen party, they didn’t have the budge to hire a lot of extras so they came up with the idea of only ten people showing up for the girl’s party. It’s fun to listen to how the guys find all these places and how they have to actually work with real catering companies to get everything looking right. They give props to the actors for how they come up with so much improv on set to improve the writing and do laugh a lot at themselves but it’s still fun hearing their takes on the fame game.
There are two behind-the scenes features, both of which were shown on Starz. Each runs about three minutes, just the actors discussing the show and parts, nothing really notable. There’s a series of alternate scenes, mostly reworking of lines and shows the improv skills of the actors while a gag reel shows how folks keep busting each other up on set.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10.0
The 411: It may go a bit over the top at times but the show is still a great comedy with witty dialogue and terrific acting with Lynch especially leaving you howling. It shows how trying to gain fame is all well and good but hardly a party time.
