Cater-Waiters Are Delicious: 'Party Down' Reviewed

Party Down: Ken Marino and Adam Scott are two of a large bevy of talented people at work on Starz's new cater-waiter comedy. Starz

 

by Linda Holmes

It's hard to overstate just how much talent is attached to the new Starz comedy Party Down, which starts tonight at 10:30 p.m., so let's just roll-call a few of the folks:

Executive Producer/Writer/Director Rob Thomas was the showrunner at both Veronica Mars and Cupid, both classically beloved shows that didn't last.

Executive Producer/Writer Paul Rudd is...Paul Rudd.

Ken Marino was part of MTV's sketch comedy The State, and went on to be a wildly versatile and reliable comic actor in lots of projects including the cult classic comedy Wet Hot American Summer.

Lizzy Caplan is an interesting and underappreciated actress who was in Cloverfield and Mean Girls, but who goes back to the Judd Apatow shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared.

Jane Lynch is the rare Christopher Guest troupe/Judd Apatow troupe crossover: she was hilarious in Best In Show and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and has a resumé that's worth reading just to appreciate her prolificacy.

Martin Starr also goes back to the wonderful Freaks and Geeks, where he played Bill Haverchuck.

You get the idea. It's a pretty impressive group. But do they come together into a good comedy?

The verdict and the details, after the jump...

The bad news, of course, is that Party Down is only available on television if you happen to get Starz, which plenty of people don't. The better news is that the first episode, anyway, is available online. Either way, it's a real treat -- odd, fundamentally warm, and reliably funny.

Marino plays Ron Donald, a team leader for a catering business largely employing struggling (or failing) actors. Ron is an unsettlingly cheerful, very demanding boss, as Henry (Adam Scott), the newest employee, learns when he shows up in an inadequately pressed uniform ("It looks like you were sleepin' in this thing, heh-heh -- in the forest!").

There's nothing especially unusual about Party Down's basic structure: a workplace full of nut cases, into which our relatively normal fellow, Henry, finds himself dropped. He makes one ally who looks like a possible love interest (Caplan), and everyone else is crazy. It's a formula, in many ways, which doesn't mean it's bad -- it means it's all in the execution.

That's why the talent involved is so critical. Here, in addition to the strong writing, both Marino and Scott are utterly committed and utterly comfortable -- when Ron confronts Henry about cutting limes "with the grain" and Henry says he didn't realize a lime had a grain, they're both patently authentic. It moves fast, it's packed with people who are always fun to watch, and it totally lacks malice or meanness. As ridiculous and baffling as the people are, this is friendly comedy, not particularly arch or angry comedy.

Getting people to watch a half-hour show at 10:30 on Friday nights seems like a hopeless uphill climb (although frequent reruns and on-demand availability go without saying), but check out the first episode online, or if you have Starz, set your DVR for a couple of weeks. If the only thing you ever hear is Lizzy Caplan's absolutely brilliant delivery of the line "You don't look helpful" in a situation where it could easily have been a throwaway (you'll have to trust me), you will have gotten your money's worth.