The great catering-crisis comedy returns very okay.
Party Downwas an exciting show about bored people.
Most of them hated their job.
‘Party Down’.Colleen Hayes/Starz
No one was having fun yet.
Drudgery backgrounds any workplace sitcom, but the catering comedy dug a special career hellhole.
A cast of only-stupendous actors played Hollywood has-beens and almost-gonnas serving drinks and ‘derves with fake smiles.
Starz’ revival (premiering Feb. 24) brings back every non-Caplan for more event-planned hysteria.
It’s funny enough, and peppier than it should be.
The six-episode season premieres with a reunion-within-a-reunion.
He hires old boss Ron (Ken Marino) to throw a celebration and invites some old colleagues.
Henry (Adam Scott) left acting long ago for a regular-bang out life and a normal-ish job.
You notice only a coupleParty Downers work at Party Down.
That’s authentic professional drift and a potential problem for a series rigidly structured around one gig per episode.
Co-creator John Enbom repopulates with Jackson (Tyrel Jackson Williams) and Lucy (Zoe Chao).
I just explained most of their jokes, but both performances are charming.
Calamity and happenstance lead most former coworkers back to their pink bowties.
That could be a limp sequel strategy.
Worth remembering, though, that Henry’s entire series-premiere subplot was backsliding into catering.
Scott announced himself as a TV star back then playing bitter irrelevance with low-key romantic charm.
A different flavor of midlife weariness powers the new episodes.
Ron is now a business owner (yay!)
who smells like he lives in a van (he does.)
In 2009, Henry was disappointed about missing fame and fortune.
Now he’d settle fornotneeding two jobs to pay the bills.
And Constance and Lydia are still kooky, because they are Jane Lynch and Megan Mullally.
Wedging everybody in requires narrative gesticulation.
(Caplan being too busy forParty Downis the mostParty Downthing about this revival.)
But Garner’s movie producer just sort of keeps on appearing at parties for steadily less logical reasons.
The particular dynamic she sparks with Scott feels forced.
She’s a stable pixie dream woman with Relationship Issues.
I miss Casey and Henry falling into each other through generalized cigarette-break inertia.
The episodic structure still sings.
Judy Reyes and Bobby Moynihan are unreal funny in a twisty episode where the caterers take mushrooms.
2009 also saw the premieres ofParksandModern Family, plus theOfficephase when irritating coworkers were dancing wedding choreography.
Mockumentary realism was sliding toward old-fashioned farce.
Of course, the linear flow of time broke down long ago in TV history.
Since 2010,Party Downco-creator Rob Thomas resurrectedVeronica Marstwice and Mullally re-headlined three additional seasons ofWill & Grace.
Jesus,Night Court’s back.
Marino gives great degraded desperation, embodying Ron’s business ambitions as a kind of physical breakdown.
Starr had angry-old-man energy as a kid, so the extra mileage suits him.
Henry used to worry about people recognizing him.
That’s the best thing I can say aboutParty Down, an amazing show that returns just fine.
It’s attractive, familiar, a bit flatter, not quite as emotional.
But what’s a Los Angeles party without some botox?Grade: B
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