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List Price: $19.97 | | Label: Starz/Anchor Bay Entertainment
Salesrank: 27296
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| Our Price: $17.99 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Party Down is a Starz original series about a group of struggling dreamers who are stuck working for tips while waiting for their big break. As employees of the L.A. catering company “Party Down,” these misfits mingle with guests at everything from sweet sixteen parties to the most lavish Hollywood soirees. Follow these engaging wannabes as they wait on guests while waiting on something better to come along.
Party Down: Season 1 Reviews:
This show is not for children!! 
2009-11-24 - Very adult themes and situations.
Without a doubt the best new show on television. Funniest show I have seen since Arrested Development, but better because it's uncensored. Jane Lynch is unparalleled as a ditsy, out of touch middle-aged actress who has seen it all. Hopefully she will be returning for the second season. If you haven't seen this, please buy the DVD, you won't regret it!
Please make another season!
2009-10-17 - This show grew on me. I love the writing and the characters. I hope this show makes it past the first season 'cause I feel for the catering crew. In my opinion way way better than the American version of "The Office". Please make more! Please!
Amazing cast in this overlooked gem
2009-09-08 - I really hope the word spreads and Party Down is picked up for more seasons! The show follows caterers in California, as they slog from one depressing event to another. All of them numbly wade their way through tragicomic corporate events, seminars, weddings and birthdays, trying to maintain their dignity while being abused by their employers and serving sub-par food.
All of the waiters are (of course) dreaming of making it big in the entertainment industry. The one exception is their manager, who dreams of one day operating a franchise called Super Crackers (or Soup-OR-Crackers... not sure which). The actors hail from great shows like Freaks and Geeks, The State, and every awesome movie made in the past 15 years (I'm looking at you, Jane Lynch), and are pitch-perfect in every episode. I can't wait for Season 2!
Very likeable and watchable 
2009-09-03 - I have to admit, I'm not a fan of Rob Thomas. Its nothing personal. I was done with Veronica Mars by a few episodes into the 2nd season. The Cupid remake was pretty awful despite some decent memories of the Jeremy Piven starring original. I never have or will see the new 90210; hell, I only ever saw fifteen or twenty minutes if the original. Party Down, on the other hand, is a real fun and funny show. PD presents us with a broad range of characters and situations rife with comedic (not to mention humiliatingly uncomfortable) potential. The characters are exactly the sort of people you might expect to find working for a Hollywood caterer: hasbeens and wannabes. With Henry and Casey, the writers even managed to toss in a bit of a non-contrived romantic subplot a la Pam and Jim from The Office. I wish we could get full 22 episode seasons of Party Down when season 2 starts up next April(!). I also hope this dvd set is packed with deleted scenes, bloopers and commentaries, but no info appears to be available yet. Good going Rob Thomas and company.
Best new comedy of the 2008-2009 season!
2009-05-26 - PARTY DOWN is a fascinating show on several levels. For one thing, it was easily the funniest new show of the 2008-2009 season. It didn't start off that way. The first couple of episodes are OK, but it quickly finds its groove and by the end of the year it is as funny as you could hope for a show to be.
If you are a VERONICA MARS fan, the show is ceaselessly fascinating. The show focuses on a group of Hollywood wannabes and wash outs who work for Party Down Caterers. The manager is played by Ken Marino, who was memorable on VERONICA MARS as shady private eye Vinnie Van Lowe. One of his employees is played by Ryan Hansen, who was the magnificently lame Dick Casablancas. Adam Scott and Jane Lynch, who play two other Party Down caterers, had guest roles on VM. And virtually the entire rest of the cast of VM make guest appearances, from Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars) to Jason Dohring (Logan Echolls) to Alona Tal (Meg Manning) and many, many others, including Veronica Mars (who has a wonderful turn as the sadistic head of a rival catering company). The show has been renewed for a second season and I'm pretty confident that many, many others from Neptune will put in appearances in the future. None of this is too surprising. One of the co-creators of PARTY DOWN is VERONICA MARS creator Rob Thomas and two writers from that series, John Enbom and Dan Etheridge, also served as co-creators. The final co-creator, Paul Rudd, guest starred. As I said, if you are a fan of VERONICA MARS, you will get a blast at seeing all the actors you have loved from the earlier series.
PARTY DOWN is the flipside of ENTOURAGE. If the latter is about largely undeserving people basking in the glory of another's success, this is about people striving for their own success and failing abysmally. Except for Ron, the manager who dreams of having his own fast food franchise, the Party Down employees are all working on the fringe of the film and television industry. Constance (Jane Lynch) is an aging "B" movie queen, star of such classics as DINGLEBERRIES. Roman (FREAKS AND GEEKS's Martin Short) is an aspiring Sci-fi script writer (one of the season's highlights is Roman cornering George Takei in a bathroom and peppering him with questions about the Mind Meld, which Takei keeps trying to explain was not his thing). Kyle and Casey (the latter played by Lizzie Caplan, seen earlier this season as Jason Stackhouse's vampire draining girlfriend on TRUE BLOOD) are both still working the dream, always waiting to hear back from their agents and dreaming of a big break. But Henry (played by Adam Scott), the show's emotional center, has given up. His hard work paid off in only one real "success," a beer commercial in which he uttered the tagline: "Is anybody having fun yet?" Deeply ironical, given the dead end job everyone is working. It is a great cast and they work wonderfully with one another. Late in the season, however, the incredibly funny Jane Lynch leaves the show. I haven't read why, but my guess is that it was so that she could work on the pilot of the new FOX series GLEE. I don't know if that means she won't be back or to what degree she will be involved with the show in the future. Luckily, her replacement was the equally funny Jennifer Coolidge. (Interestingly, Lynch and Coolidge were paired - in more way than one - in BEST IN SHOW, as the trainer and owner respectively of a full size poodle.)
Every episode of the show takes place at a catered event. There are no scenes outside of the workplace. We see them at a couple of weddings, at a birthday party, at a meeting of Young Republicans, at a party to celebrate someone who might be a Russian mobster getting off on a murder charge, a porn awards ceremony, and other wonderful affairs. Hilarity ensues. My favorite moment might have been when a Russian gangster goes up to Jane Lynch and recounts poetically, passionately, and almost reverentially a scene from one of her movies. And she, touched, replies, "You've seen DINGLEBERRIES?!" Not exactly a title you'd assume could provoke any such response.
I love the relationships that develop among the characters. Ron's almost sad attempt each week to get his workers to perform their jobs with some degree of professionalism. The way that Kyle and Roman continuously dig at one another. Constance's consistently over familiarity with the party guests. Henry and Casey's romance-in-all-but-name and Henry's chagrin when people recognize him from his beer commercial and his persistent reluctance (except on one occasion when he feels it might save his life) to say his famous beer commercial line.
I suspect that this is a show that most people will get to know via DVD, since not everyone manage to get Starz. Do yourself a favor and check this out.
