Party Down

Premise

This half-hour comedy follows a Los Angeles, California, catering team for the titular company. The sextet of aspiring Hollywood actors and writers, as well as drifting lost souls, work small-time catering gigs while hoping for their break or some positive change in their lives. Each episode finds the team working a new event, and inevitably getting tangled up with the colorful, affluent guests and their absurd lives.

Main cast

Recurring cast

Conception

The concept of Party Down was six years in the making, with many of the ideas for the episodes conceptualized years before the show was made. An original unaired pilot was shot at Rob Thomas's house with all the original cast except Lizzy Caplan, whose character was played by Andrea Savage. Paul Rudd was also in the pilot, but could not participate in the series due to film projects. The pilot was used to sell the show to the Starz network.

Crew

The series was executive produced by co-creators John Enbom, Rob Thomas, Dan Etheridge and Paul Rudd. Enbom served as showrunner. The co-executive producers were Jennifer Gwartz and Danielle Stokdyk and Jennifer Dugan was a producer. Beginning with season two, series star Adam Scott served as a producer, while series directors Bryan Gordon and Fred Savage served as supervising producers. Series star Ken Marino directed the second-season finale episode.

Possible film adaptation

On January 8, 2012, Megan Mullally confirmed the film is being written by John Enbom and she will be part of it. According to Mullally, the film will likely pick up where season two left off. The entire cast is expected to be present, with the possible exception of Jane Lynch.

In a January 2012 interview, Martin Starr commented that "I know that things have gone out that make it seem like it’s official, but there’s nothing official. We all have our fingers crossed and hope that everything works out and that we can get it made. There are small steps being taken that hopefully will lead to people signing contracts and us getting to do something, but at the moment I’m not capable of saying that it’s happening yet". Starr continued that, although he had "heard of the possibility of financiers", he was not sure "to what degree things are moving forward, or if things are moving forward". He then joked "Hopefully those talks lead to us getting to make an amazing movie that all seven of us fans can watch". In December 2015, Adam Scott said the film is unlikely to ever happen, and if anything were to happen it would most likely be new episodes.

Reception

Andrew Wallenstein of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Lurking behind the surface of this raucous comedy is an astute meditation on the promise and peril of leading an unconventional life, something about which aspiring actors know a thing or two." The American Film Institute named Party Down one of the 10 best shows of 2009. Season two scored 85 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 12 critical reviews. James Poniewozik of Time ranked Party Down as the sixth best television series of 2010.

In 2012, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at #21 in the "25 Best Cult TV Shows from the Past 25 Years," calling it a "smart, drily funny series" and saying, "But the off-beat writing shone brightest in the smaller moments, when the gang was just sitting around a kitchen and bickering to pass the time."