Party Down, "Precious Lights Pre-School Auction": Rumpled Stiltskin

A review of tonight's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as you know the difference between you and James Van Der Beek's parrot...

"You'll never work in this town again!" -Leonard Stiltskin
"I know." -Henry

Rob Thomas(*) has told the story many times of how he, John Enbom, Dan Etheridge and Paul Rudd pitched "Party Down" to HBO, only for the HBO execs at the time to decide that they had conflicting visions of what a Hollywood comedy should be. And so HBO ultimately gave us "Entourage" (about Hollywood insiders who get everything handed to them on a silver platter) and Thomas and company eventually found a home for "Party Down" (about Hollywood outsiders who struggle for everything and fail far more often than they succeed) at Starz. And an episode like "Precious Lights Pre-School Auction" - which namechecks "Entourage"(**) while featuring the return of JK Simmons as foul-mouthed movie mogul Leonard Stiltskin - is a reminder of why the outsiders' perspective is so much more fun.

(*) Rob, by the way, spent a year at the start of his career writing for "Dawson's Creek" and has taken opportunities in the past to have fun at the expense of The Beek, here with the phrase "James Van Der Beek's parrot."

(**) Love that Roman is a phony who will say "F--k 'Entourage'" while at the same time knowing and caring about the show enough to be indignant at Kyle's suggestion that Roman would be Turtle, when Roman clearly knows, "I'd be E, and you'd be Turtle."

So here we have the members of Party Down once again attending a function they'd never be allowed into as guests in a million years, though Casey comes closest by running into a comedian-turned-mom who's basically Casey a few years down the road. (***) Stiltskin and his wife are there to taunt them about how far all the characters haven't progressed in the last year: Henry never got to play Young Abe Lincoln, Kyle is still nowhere (and, unsurprisingly, Mrs. Stiltskin has chosen to forget their time together), Roman is at best proprietor of a a prestigious blog, etc.

(***) And in a meta touch, the character was played by Andrea Savage, who played Casey in the original homemade pilot shot in Thomas's backyard. Savage couldn't do the series because, appropriately enough for this character, she got pregnant.

Kyle's still trying, and still believes in himself enough as an actor to enjoy gaming Roman, while Henry is slipping so deeply into his new manager job - with the Taco Bell view that accompanies it - that he tears into Ron with the kind of speech he'd have laughed at a year earlier. (He tries to play it off as acting, but you can see the self-loathing on his face afterward.) But they're all running in place, and Ron, with his disgusting 'pit stains and loss of his barely-legal girlfriend, is actually going backwards.

But for once we get a small victory, as Casey nails her audition for a small role in a Judd Apatow movie(****), dissuading her from following Savage's path for at least a little while.

(****) Between Lizzy Caplan's early role on "Freaks and Geeks" and the amount of crossover between the Thomas and Apatow repertory companies, what other director could it be?

Structurally, "Precious Lights" didn't have the comic build that the best "Party Down" episodes do, but it still had plenty of great one-liners, whether it was Stiltskin explaining that he once drank ape sperm to get a game with Tiger Woods, or Roman's line about The Beek's parrot, or Casey lamenting all her bad auditions, including the time she was told she was "'too Jew-y'... and I was reading for 'The Diary of Anne Frank.'" And the tip jar gag was a nice role reversal from the episode last year where team leader Ron insisted on putting out the tip jar over everyone's objections, only for the partygoers to cheap out on them.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Jackal Onassis Backstage Party": Really Roman

I wrote about the new season of "Party Down" in general in today's column. Some quick thoughts on the season two premiere coming up just as soon as you have a conversation I'm not going to participate in...

As I said in the column, the two real issues I had with the season is that Megan Mullally takes a while to fit in, and that Henry becoming team leader seemed like one of those ideas that seemed better as a season-ending cliffhanger rather than a season-starting status quo. TV shows like to do these "everything you know is wrong!" finales and worry about the consequences later, and the consequences tend to be 3-5 episodes spent/wasted on returning things to exactly the way they were before (because, after all, we liked things the way they were). Henry running the team - and being in a relationship with Uta just as Casey returns from her cruise ship gig - does have some promise that pays off in spots, but the balance of this episode felt off.

So because I didn't love the new arrangement, and because Mullally was largely off to the side, it was left to the Roman/Kyle duo to largely carry things. And, fortunately, Roman's complete and utter loathsomeness was up to the challenge, as he discovered that women preferred Kyle to him even when he was disguised as a popular, lady-killing Marilyn Manson-type rock star(*).

(*) Played by Jimmi Simpson, aka the lead McPoyle on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

Nice cameo by Danny Woodburn (aka Mickey from "Seinfeld") as the waiter fired to make way for Casey's return, and while I prefer my Ron Donald to be uptight and oblivious, Ken Marino did have fun playing a drunk, self-destructive Ron.

This is definitely the weakest of the season's 10 episodes, and I know some of you who already streamed it on Starz's website said that means the rest of the season must be pretty great. And it is.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'Party Down' season two review: Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review "Party Down" season two, and talk about the bittersweet nature of watching a show that's so funny, knowing that one of the main reasons for that (Adam Scott) won't be back full-time if there's another season.

I'll have a short review of the premiere up tonight at 10:30. Click here to read the full post

Adam Scott to Parks & Recreation - so what happens to Party Down?

Yesterday offered a development in TV that's the epitome of a good news/bad news situation. The good news: the very funny, versatile, likable Adam Scott is joining the cast of "Parks and Recreation," which is probably my favorite comedy on television right now. The bad news: this means Scott won't be available to be a regular on "Party Down" (one of my favorite comedies from last year) if Starz orders another season after the one set to debut on April 23.

Some thoughts on this - plus a comment from "Party Down" producer Rob Thomas on where this leaves his show - coming up after the jump...

Because "Party Down" is on a cable channel that's really just getting into the scripted TV business and isn't yet throwing around a ton of money, they've had to be creative about how they get actors. So the entire "Party Down" cast signed one-year contracts for the first season, which gave each actor the flexibility to go do something else (i.e., something more lucrative) if an offer came along a year later, rather than being locked in to a below-market contract. That's why the show lost Jane Lynch to "Glee" after the first season, though Lynch will guest star in one episode of season two.

The actors were again on one-year deals for season two. I interviewed Scott and co-star Lizzy Caplan back at press tour, and one of the things that was on both their minds was what they were going to do about pilot season this year. Starz just brought in a new chief executive in former HBO boss Chris Albrecht, and Albrecht hasn't seemed to be in any hurry to renew the show. And that, in turn, left the show's actors in a pickle: do they sit out pilot season and hope Albrecht would renew it down the line - and, therefore, risk not having a steady job of any kind next season - or do they go for another, possibly more secure job, even if it means abandoning a show everybody enjoys making?

Well, Scott clearly, and understandably, made his choice, and one show's loss is another's gain. He seems to make Paul Schneider redundant on "Parks and Rec," as he can do most of the stuff Schneider does, only funnier, but his dry, earthy style should be a really good match for what Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman and company have been doing this season.

And what does this mean for "Party Down"? Again, there's an entire season in the can with Scott as the lead. (I've seen the first five episodes, and they're very funny.) But losing the show's central, point-of-view character seems tough, so I asked Rob Thomas what his options are going forward, should a third season be in the cards:

"Adam will be allowed to do three guest star spots for us," Thomas said. "We can definitely still do the show without Adam, though we're all collectively entering about the third stage of grief over here. We'd much, much prefer to be doing the show with him.  Adam hated leaving the show, but they made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and in a world where our 'Party Down' future isn't guaranteed, he understandably felt like he needed to take the offer. We've been told that in order to return for a third season, our second season numbers need to come up from where they were. We're praying that, even with Adam gone, Starz continues with a big marketing campaign for Season 2."

I want to be optimistic, but the way Albrecht has dragged his feet on this - knowing full well that something like this might happen - doesn't fill me with hope. It's an unfortunate fact of Hollywood life that when a new administration takes over a channel or studio, they become invested in pushing their own projects, rather than supporting the stuff that existed before they got there. If "Party Down" were to turn into the cable-sized hit it deserves to be, Albrecht wouldn't get much credit, because it pre-dated his arrival.

So enjoy the season two episodes and hope for the best, but brace for the worst. And, if nothing else, three episodes of Scott in a hypothetical season three would be better than only one of Lynch this year. Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Stennheiser-Pong Wedding Reception": Talking comedy with Rob Thomas and John Enbom

As I've been promising for a couple of weeks, here's a combined transcript of interviews I did with "Party Down" producers Rob Thomas and John Enbom. Because of my schedule this week, I didn't have time to do a separate review of the season finale, featuring a long-awaited Veronica Mars/Dick Casablancas reunion, but feel free to discuss the episode here, along with general thoughts on this hilarious season.

The transcript (and I re-arranged things so that Rob and John's answers to the same question would be together) coming up just as soon as I direct you to the bathroom...

How happy are you with how the season played out?

Rob: Extremely happy. We went into it very very rushed, not knowing whether we had the time to write the scripts and be ready in time. Starz asked us when we could be ready to go if they ordered the series, we gave them a date, then we dickered on the terms of the deal and the budget for a couple of months, then they said, "Okay, go." "When we said two months ago we could have it ready then, we thought it meant we would be starting then." For John, it was a really speedy process, burning the candle at both ends. We're really pleased with the show in a first year. In a potential season two, we would have more time to write, we would know the actors better. All of this was written prior to knowing who would be in it. Constance is barely in the porn party episode, and I think had we known we had gotten Jane (Lynch) and seen what she was doing, we never would have done an episode where you wouldn't see her that little.

John: I'm really happy with it. Having worked enough in television to know how much chemistry, in the biggest regard, plays a part in the success of how things work. I think we got a great cast, great crew -- everybody got it in a way that really exceeded my expectations in how smoothly things would come along. For me, stepping in and trying to run things day to day, there was a large possibility of everything going bananas. So the fact that it didn't was good.

How did John wind up running the show?

John: Kind of by dint of being the one person who was free to do it. Basically, we got the offer from Starz at a point when Rob was finishing two pilots, and the "90210" thing was in some kind of play. So he and Dan Etheridge were in very over their heads, we were all excited to do it, but Rob didn't feel up to taking on the showrunner responsibilities of a fourth show. So Rob asked, "If this does happen, how would you feel wiggling out of your current writing job to write this?" Which I jumped at, I was on "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," and they very graciously allowed me to run off and do this. (Rob and Dan) were swamped doing "Cupid" at the time, so it really ended up with me as the only guy who could do it.

What's Jane's availability going to be for next season, given that she's now under contract to "Glee" and Fox?

Rob: We're planning on pleading our case with "Glee" and Fox. If there's a glimmer of hope, we want to pursue it. We love Jane, the person. We love Jane, the actress. Finding out she might not be able to return just as we get the pickup up, well, Alanis Morissette knows where we're coming from -- it's kinda like rain on your wedding day.

John: But not as "ironic" -- just a straight-up bummer.

The season ends with many of the characters either leaving Party Down or being in position where they could leave. Was that by design?

Rob: Yes. It was absolutely by design. We had everyone in a one year deal. So we had to prepare ourselves for the potential of losing any of our actors.

So how are you going to deal with bringing them all back together next season?

John: I think we're just going to use the natural passage of time, to just pick up the chips where they've fallen. Some will be easier than others. But I think we established Casey would be gone for six months. She can be back. It's always possible to figure out how somebody's big break turns into not their big break. We've been batting around ideas of what happens to Ron and his Soup 'R Crackers. Thinking up a way for Ron to screw something up doesn't seem that much of a stretch. One of the things that we're looking at is just to see how does Henry deal with this evolution of being promoted further into a world he never really wanted to be in. We might be looking at that, might be trying to deal with the idea that he's even more settled into this kind of life than he wanted to be.

Is there a character you feel you couldn't afford to do without?

Rob: Losing Henry in particular. He just feels like such the center of the show for us that it doesn't feel like it would be the same thing without him. He's the grounded character. He is our, meaning the viewer's, eyes into this world. He's the most relatable for the people who are entering the show. The brilliance of Adam Scott is that he is so damn funny in a straight man role. He represents the rest of us in this situation. He allows everyone to be bigger and more overtly funny.

It's funny that a bunch of my readers have said things like "This is the first time I've ever seen Adam Scott play someone likable." Because he's always cast as a douchebag.

Rob: He even played a douchebag in "Veronica Mars. Which is funny. I think there are people, and I do not mean this to be disparaging, there are people like Jay Mohr and Jeremy Piven where they just give you that vibe, "This guy's going to play someone a little venal." And for playing a lot of those characters, he doesn't have that quality. Not only doesn't he have it in real life, but it's very much something he has to put on.

John: I find it kind of funny. One of the reasons I thought he would be great in this role was because this is how I've known him, as kind of a nice, likable guy who has this slightly under the radar sardonic sense of humor. That's why I thought he would be great. He really knows and finds and nails that guy. I was actually kind of amused to find out that (douchebaggery) was his bread and butter. Hopefully, this will change that. He's a very good actor, and he's also very good at the sort of loose comedy side of things as well.

How different is Adam's version of Henry than the way Paul (Rudd) might have played it?

Rob: Adam plays a little dryer than Paul. It's tough to say. There has been an evolution in our heads. For five years, it was Paul's voice in our heads. Paul was sitting in the room working on it with us. Paul would say these lines out loud. It was even largely Paul's voice when the episodes were written. Now, of course, I hear Adam's voice in my head now when I think about it or write it. I think both of them can be subtle actors, but I think Adam is more inherently dry.

What's Paul's involvement been this season?

Rob: Paul had a hand in casting. All of us. We did pull a bunch of favors, as you can tell from watching the shows. Every week we'd pick the scripts and try to figure out, 'Who can we get for this?' And we do think it'll be much easier this year. We think we'll have to call in fewer favors. Even the people who did us favors want to come back if there can be any excuse. There's been talk of Enrico (Colantoni) divorcing his wife and we find him playing in a Top 40 cover band. JK Simmons e-mailed us and said, "You know, my daughter will turn 17 next year." But whwat we thought was funnier was to do the actual movie release party of the Edgar Allen Poe movie, and have Breckin Meyer come back and do more Matthew McConnaughey. Paul weighed in on all the scripts. The intention was for him to write one.

Is he going to be on the show at some point?

Rob: Paul is desperate to do the show, and I think it's a little odd for all of us that he hasn't. It's about a hole in his schedule and finding the right bit of business.

Who are the holdovers from the original guerrilla pilot you shot a few years ago?

John: Ken (Marino), and Jane, and Adam...

Adam played Henry even back then? I thought Paul did.

John: Not at that point. Way back when we had the show as a logline, I think Paul was at a point in his career where he said, "Well, doing an HBO series might be interesting." But by the time we shot it, it was Adam. I actually knew Adam as a friend of Paul's for a while. I didn't know his work as an actor, but I thought he was pretty good. And Ryan (Hansen) was in it. Those four guys crossed over, and then we got Martin (Starr) and Lizzy (Caplan).

How did Casey and Roman change from your original conception once you got those two?

John: Lizzy was a little younger than we had managed. Andrea Savage played the role in the little scrappy pilot we did. She's a little older and closer to Henry's age. We were originally interested in the idea of two people who were at the same point in their careers but had made different decisions about what to do. Lizzie being younger skewed that a little bit, we had her rejecting the normal life to stay and scrap. But she and Adam had a great chemistry, and you could see them clicking the way they did.

Martin, I think. It was funny: when we were casting for that role, we had seen some people, and we were looking around, we told our casting director, "We'd like a Martin Starr type," and they said, "How about Martin Starr?" And a week later, he had joined the cast. Obviously, the great thing about him is that he totally nails that role, it just gave us license to give him further rein. He does such a good job of both capturing the kind of bitter unfairness of that guy's worldview while also playing the kind of comic oblivion that allows him to say those things.

None of you who write for the show have any traditional comedy writing experience, right?

Rob: No, but we're all fans of comedy.

One of the things I really liked about the show was that it has this kind of classical farcical structure where everything just builds and builds, and then it all blows up in someone's face -- usually Ron's. And I might have expected that from more seasoned comedy writers.

Rob: I don't know that we ever used the term farce, or talked about the structure of farce, but we ended up building towards some big humiliation for Ron in the final act. And that became sort of a structure. It was interesting. There are a couple of things about the Ricky Gervais show "Extras." We had this show written before "Extras" came on. And I really adore that show, the Ian McKellen episode was my favorite episode of television the year it came out. They were doing something similar, building to some huge Andy Millman humiliation in that act. And year two when they gave him a catchphrase, we were all slapping ourselves in the head going, 'Oh, no!' Because it was, to a degree, our structure, and less so than "The Office." That was more our direct line. We may not be the writers who can or want to do set-up, punch, but that kind of comedy, we thought that's what speaks to us. We think we can do that. Let's take a stab at that.

How was it to be writing straight comedy?

Rob: I had the best time. It feels like the way I normally write, with the boundary on the comedy side expanded a bit further. I'm thinking in particular with how pleased I was with the pancake lady story (in the investor's dinner episode). That's something I couldn't quite do in "Veronica Mars," but the boundaries in "Party Down" allowed for an anecdotal story that doesn't move plot in any direction. Something that's so hard to do in normal network television. You always feel like you're having to drive a story point, this scene will link Part A to Part B, I don't get the opportunity to just tell a two-minute anecdote using pancakes and sex metaphors. It was liberating in that sense. And having written both comedy and drama, comedy's harder, because the fear of failure's so much stronger. When you write a scene and you see it cut together, and it doesn't make you laugh, it hurts in a way that failed drama doesn't. Failed drama, it's all, "that's not that compelling," but failed comedy just lays there. The investor dinner episode, there are a couple of moments, when they're having the conversation about Baretta's gun, and we cut inside the house, and there's about two minutes as they just go into that mansion that just feel flat and painful, and I go, 'Oh, just please...' Things I thought were funny on the page weren't funny. It hurts as I watch the episode. But honestly, the joy of seeing Jane Lynch take the "Old McDonald" scene -- when I wrote that, I thought, 'Oh god, I hope this works. Because that will be so ugly if it doesn't work.' But you're putting it in Jane Lynch's hand. I'm so oddly proud of myself when I watch that scene, because I'm watching comedy for comedy's sake, as opposed to "Veronica Mars," where I feel like I'm writing "Heathers."

What are some things you learned from the first season, in terms of things you felt worked and things that didn't?

John: I just don't want us to repeat ourselves. I think we did a pretty good job of arcing out the season, we kept things moving and not too bogged down in a kind of repetitive, all the sort of things you could see being said over and over again. To me, the thing is just to find a new direction to take these characters that doesn't take away what makes the show funny and poignant or whatever. That's why we're looking at new ways to put Henry and Ron and these guys into, not just episodic situations, but overall life situations that give us new material to work with. I think we want to be able to settle in on the combination of the pathos, comedy, farce that seems to really work for the show. One thing that we really liked was the degree to which every episode is a different party and yopu're plunging into a different world. It sounded like a good idea on paper and was easily pitchable, but we weren't sure we could give life to those things. And we did. We got some great guest casts, and it was a way to allow every episode to stand out, and keep pushing that as well.

Rob: There were moments of pretty big, broad comedy, funny for funny's sake, and then there's that dark, painful, this hurts comedy. One of the things we want to do is a better job of blending those things, making sure that there's a combination of those elements. Like Ron's 20th high school reunion -- that's a pretty dark episode. Which is fine, and I love a lot of that material. But I wish we had had some Kyle Bradway daffiness in it. I wish we had had more funny and light stuff to go hand in hand in that episode, so we didn't feel like such an onslaught of our misanthropic tendencies. I like both things, but I just want to make sure that we do a better job, episode by episode, that there are elements of each that they don't tip over. I think the antithesis of that episode is the mobster release party, which is just kind of a fun romp throughout. I think that episode probably pushes us as close to the comedy line. Every show has a boundary of "What universe are you operating in?" I think that takes us as far into the pure comedy range as you'll ever see us. I adore Stephen Weber's performance, but I don't think we can push that any further.

That episode had the vomit joke at the end, and even though I'm tired of so many on-screen vomit jokes in movies these days, I thought that was hilarious.

Rob: A big, huge debate in our universe here, and I'm not sure Fred Savage is happy about it to this day. Fred directed both the porn party episode and Ron's 20th reunion, and Fred was very disappointed that we ended up showing more of the fake penis in porn party. In his cut, you just saw a whisker of it. You just saw Ron's hand stuffing it back, he was worried how fake the prosthetic looked, thought it was funnier the less you showed. I respect that, he could be right. But the rest of us liked the one-second clip where you knew Casey saw the whole thing. But then what I thought was funny, "Okay, Fred, you think that the penis is overdoing it, but you gave us a bathtub of puke." I thought they both were funny, maybe that's my taste. You'll see these people who've worked in the business, very smart people discussing fake vomit and penises.

With the Roman/Kyle rivalry, I think a lot of series would be inclined to make Roman the likable one and Kyle the jerk, and it turned out the other way, for the most part.

Rob: It's the attempt that we consciously make, wanting to tip some storytelling devices on their heads. It's the reason we had Henry and Casey sleep together in episode three. We know that there are going to be enough "Office" comparisons, beyond the obvious that every show on television has delayed gratification with a couple at its center. Kyle is harmless and self-absorbed, and the tragedy of the rest of the crew is that he's the one likely to make it, but he's not a bad guy. The scene of him inviting Constance out to Okey Dog (in "Investor's Dinner"), I thought was a defining moment for him. It's a bit of soul in there. And Roman, he's not a very huggable character.

John: Some of that, I think, has to do with the nature of Ryan, for instance. One of the reasons we have always cast him in stuff is because he really is such a likable presence. That helps his character, it steers him a bit away from being the total cliche of vapid empty-headed actors, that he also has this sweetness to him. And there, again, came out of the natural chemistry between the two of them, especially matched up together as they often tend to be. That was deliberate: Roman matched up against Kyle is always going to lose. I think he's aware of it, and he finds it unfair. That's one of those things I liked about that relationship. There was this comic fatalism to the fact that, even when Roman was correct.

Roman gives you that great moment in the porn episode where he can't stop himself from ruining his shot with the actress who's into dragons.

Rob: Martin is so good in that scene. I've watched that scene just so many times. You can just watch the thought process. You know he knows he should shut his mouth, this girl told him her real name, she's into sci-fi, and he just can't help himself. It's one of my favorite moments.

When did the show start clicking for you?

John: I would probably say either the senior singles or sweet sixteen episodes. I think we just did good scripts where all the things kind of clicked. Tone-wise, they kept us very much in the realm we ended up feeling was the sweet spot for the show. It was the right balance of, there was some plotting, but it's not overly farcical or manic. We liked those episodes

Well, speaking of the level of plotting, it felt like there was just the right amount of continuing storylines, so if you were new to the show, you wouldn't be confused, but if you watched every one, there were small rewards about how, say, Henry and Casey's relationship was evolving.

John: I think that's another thing we pointedly tried to avoid was to make it overly serialized. The impulse is always there, you can sit down, rub your hands together and ask what the big picture is. We did our best to keep it very simple, and down to easily trackable little elements and focus on episodes. Some of that anxiety came from the "Veronica Mars" days, when there was always a tension between how convoluted you want your big picture plot to be, versus episode of the week stuff. But it also frees you up, comedy-wise, if you don't have to be servicing this big plot all the time. I liked being able to keep the carry-over stuff at such a level that you can either address it at the beginning of the episode, and everything else is the fun of what happens. It's enough that you can make a meal of it on its own, but it's never the thing where you're required to deal with. Having never sat down to do straight-up comedy, the biggest panics I ever had was, "There needs to be funny things happening as often as possible," and the more plot you have, the harder it becomes.

How has the experience been with Starz?

Rob: Unbelievably great. It's why I'm pitching them this Austin rock band drama I'm working on. I want to work with those guys. I want to be happy going to work. I want to do a show I'm proud of. Starz gives us notes, they have thoughts on the show, they have thoughts on the script, and we do a number of their notes, but the ones we disagree on that we don't want to do, we never hear from them again. There have maybe been 2 or 3 notes this year where we said we want to do it our way, and they said, "Really, we want you to reconsider this." The reason we have is they've been so genial and supportive. It's just nice doing a show for a network that clearly loves the show and are happy you're doing it with them. This year has taught me that I would be much happier, even if the number of viewers are in the hundreds of thousands, rather than millions, if I can be doing something I'm proud of with a supportive group of people. There are some quirks of working with a network that's new to original programming -- that everything you do is like setting precedent. It's not the factory. In a way that will slow you down, but God, I'll take this experience.

What ideas do you have for parties for next season?

Rob: There was this movie premiere that just happened where the caterers and the event planner got the dates mixed up, and they didn't have supplies. The catering team was literally running to whole foods and buying out there anything that could fit on a cracker, so this high class movie premiere was a disaster. Te really, other than the Edgar Allan Poe movie, don't have anything specific planned yet. I remember a pet wedding being discussed this year, and yet I'm so fearful that this is one that's funnier in the two-word pitch. I'm just not sure that Chriostopher Guest hasn't already nailed crazy dog owners.

I imagine you get a lot of pitches from people you meet.

Rob: It is the funniest thing, though. It's a great cocktail party thing. You can be talking with almost anyone, and they will have an idea for a "Party Down" episode. When we talk to people about the show, everyone gives us, "Oh, I was at this party where..." It's one of those things we're not worried about.

Were the guest roles written with specific people in mind, or did you write the role and then see which favor you could cash in to fill it?

John: I think it was mostly the latter. The only one we knew beforehand were Rico Colantoni in the pilot. Uda was eventually written for Kristen, but it wasn't from the beginning. When we first conceived that party idea and that character, I think it was originally supposed to be a guy. Kristen is good friends with Ryan Hansen, and she came and visited the set and said, "Can I do one?" And we said, "Are you serious?" And we switched it around.

We don't actually find out what Uda did to Ron to make him so afraid of her.

John: I think the idea was just that she was awful to him, in a way that you see he can't really deal with. Certainly, that's something we can explore in a season two. I'm not sure we've got the whole thing quite nailed down yet. If there were ever a prequel of the show, I'm sure we could be kind of amused with the idea of a younger Uda and a younger Ron, working side by side.

It sounds like your guest stars generally had a good time.

John: It was certainly the most fun set I've ever worked on. The actors were all very smart, funny guys who got along well. We never had the money to go over schedule, so it was not mind-crushingly hard work. Having that kind of semi-improvised looseness to it allowed people to step in and not feel like they were just coming in to punch the clock. And we love the idea that the people that did come in and do it just felt free to come in and do what they felt like. They not only delivered these great crazy performances, but also had a good time doing that. Steven Weber was so much fun. He said, "I usually play jerks in suits." I think that gives us a good rep on the street when it comes time to find some more. Certainly, we've gone pretty deep into the "Veronica Mars" rolodex. But I was surprised by how many people outside that world we got as well.

There's always Weevil for next season.

John: This is true. This has been discussed. Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "James Rolf High School Twentieth Reunion": Do the Bluto

Spoilers for the penultimate episode of "Party Down" season one coming up just as soon as I accept a personal gift from Dennis Quaid's manager's lawyer...

"Be like a movie. You can score one for the losers." -Donnie

First things first: in case you missed it, today's column was another look at "Party Down," including news about the show being renewed, and a few quotes from Rob Thomas and showrunner John Enbom. I had hoped to have one or both of those interviews properly transcribed to run tonight, but time ran out on me, so look for a combination of both of those next week.

Whenever I do one of those columns where I check back in on a show I had reviewed earlier in the season, I try to make sure it's tied to an episode of the show that I feel exemplifies the opinion expressed in that column. (A few weeks ago, I was going to write a "Grey's Anatomy has gotten better" piece, but then I didn't like the episodes ABC made available for advance review, so I wrote something else.) I would have been happy running that column alongside last week's hilarious "Celebrate Rick Sargulesh," or next week's finale with Kristen Bell, but it goes just as well with the hilarious, albeit very painful, "James Rolf High School Twentieth Reunion," which is the Ron humiliation episode to end all Ron humiliation episodes.

The idea that Ron would think being a cater-waiter at his own reunion, even a "team leader," would impress all his old classmates was a brilliant example of something so sad it's funny (or vice versa), and Ken Marino did a great job throughout of portraying Ron's oblivious hopefulness. Ron is just as delusional as Constance(*) or Roman, though his dreams are much smaller. In his mind, he is an impressive leader of men now, and he does have a shot at Melinda, and everything's going to work out perfectly, just like the movie his old buddy Donnie suggests Ron's starring in. And while I think there have been far, far too many onscreen vomit jokes in the years since "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," I thought the one at the end here was hilarious, both because it was perfectly set up earlier with the reference to how Ron got the "Bluto" nickname and all of Ron's waiting for the right moment with Melinda, and because Ron was pleading for her to call 911 to save his life, even as he kept on puking.

(*) As mentioned in the column, Jane Lynch wasn't in this episode or the finale because she got cast in the "Glee" pilot -- which in turn may keep her from joining everybody else for "Party Down" season two. These episodes were both written with Constance present and at the last minute had to be rejiggered to feature Jennifer Coolidge (who played Jane Lynch's lover in "Best In Show") as Constance's longtime roommate, Bobbi St. Brown. Coolidge, as you would expect from someone of her background, fits right in, though she gets more to do next week. And Constance is written off, for now, anyway, as having gone away with Zoltan, the "Dingleberries"-loving gangster from last week.

This was also a great Casey episode, as she did everything in her power to keep Henry from quitting to move back in with his parents. Lizzy Caplan's delight at meeting Donnie and realizing that she had just found the perfect object lesson for Henry was very nicely-played.

More fine guest casting this episode, not just with Coolidge, but Joe Lo Truglio (one of Marino's old buddies from The State) perfectly cast as Donnie, Molly Parker as Melinda and Kyle Bornheimer (from "Worst Week") as popular Mark Defino. If this is the caliber of people they can get when they're just calling in favors for a show no one's even seen, I look forward to seeing who turns up next season now that word of mouth is spreading a little.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'Party Down' just gets funnier - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I check back in on "Party Down" -- which, if you've been reading my blog reviews, you know has become one of my favorite things on TV right now. There are a few quotes from the recent interviews I did with Rob Thomas and John Enbom (viewers of the "Cupid" remake might want to pay close attention to the last one from Thomas). I had hoped to have one transcript or the other properly formatted to run tonight, but I'm not sure I'll have a chance to do that. So if you don't see one up tonight at the same time as my episode review, know that I'll put them both up (possibly as one ridiculously long combined post) with the finale next week. Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Celebrate Rick Sargulesh": Almost famous

Spoilers for tonight's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I assault you with emotions...

"When you escape, as I did, from jaw of Hell, you understand which things really matter: honor, friends, woman, and celebrities! Let's hear it for Hollywood celebrities!" -Rick Sargulesh

After last week's minor misstep, "Celebrate Rick Sargulesh" was "Party Down" back at its ridiculous best, an episode that takes its characters' deeper aspirations to their farcical conclusion, with Sargulesh and his band of gangsters treating Constance and company like the celebrities they so desperately want to be. Constance is viewed as a sex symbol due to her time in '80s "Porky's" rip-offs with names like "Dingleberries." Kyle is a stud, Casey a comedy star, Roman a talented writer worthy of giving Rick notes on his syntax-impaired screenplay, and Henry's life is more or less saved by Rick's henchman recognizing him from the beer commercial.

(It was hilarious to watch how Henry, fearing for his safety, could not wait to ask, "Are we having fun yet?" Usually, it pains him to even be recognized for the line, let alone to recite it, but a little danger made him ready, willing and eager to say it.)

I interviewed Rob Thomas about the season, and I'm going to post the transcript either next Friday, or the day of the finale in two weeks. (It depends on how my interview next week goes with John Enbom, who's the actual showrunner on "Party Down," and whether I want to combine the two or run them separately.) Anyway, in discussing this episode, Rob said:

Every show has a boundary of "What universe are you operating in?" I think that ("Celebrate Rick Sargulesh") takes us as far into the pure comedy range as you'll ever see us.

And, certainly, you wouldn't want to go much sillier than this episode, not in a universe that can also accomodate dry, down-to-earth characters like Henry and Casey. But working right up to the edge was wickedly funny, and Steven Weber continues to be a lot more interesting (and funnier) than I pegged him for back in the "Wings" days; I spent several hours after initially watching it wandering around my house speaking in a faux-Russian accent without articles or modifiers, and inviting my family to "celebrate Alan Sepinwall." (They didn't get it. It happens.)

One other sneak preview of the Thomas interview, about the future of the series:

We like our chances, and the network has been very supportive. We're moving forward as though we would be back next year.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Brandix Corporate Retreat": Peeping Roman

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I tell you that I've seen "300" exactly 1/4 times (I gave up 30 minutes in)...

The last few episodes of "Party Down" had been so deliriously funny that I knew a let-down was inevitable sooner or later -- even the best comedies have let-down episodes now and then -- and we finally got it with "Brandix Corporate Retreat." Aside from a few funny throwaway moments like Constance only knowing Rick Fox as an actor, or the revelation of who/what Roman was really peeping on, it was extremely light on laughs and never really built up to a climax the way the previous episodes did.

(Like the subject of Roman's surveillance, the episode wasn't a closer.)

I thought some of the ideas had promise -- Henry's bonding with the guests finally leads to a job offer (albeit one not as promising as he's led to believe), and Henry's increasing investment in the relationship with Casey leads him to do something stupid -- but the execution wasn't there. They didn't even give Rob Corddry anything funny to do, which was odd, given how well they've written for all the previous guest stars.

Hey, it happens. I have an unwatched DVD of the season's final three episodes, and I'm looking forward to it just as much now as I was before seeing this one.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Taylor Stiltskin Sweet Sixteen Party": Alright, alright, alright!

Brief spoilers for tonight's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I fill my fist with mac 'n cheese...

"You still like me, right?" -Henry
"I do... but, I probably would like you more if you were helping Edgar Allan Poe fight vampires." -Casey

At the moment, "Party Down" is clicking so well that any analysis feels besides the point. This was just an extremely funny episode that made played to the strengths of the entire cast:

• After weeks of playing Henry as a guy who has given up on his dream and is just waiting for a new one, Adam Scott got to play a slightly more hopeful Henry, only to have him crushed again when Leonard Stiltskin recognized him as the "Are we having fun yet?" guy.

• Ken Marino got to do a clever variation of Stoned Guy, as there was a dark and desperate undercurrent: having cleaned up his life for the sake of his career, Ron had to let himself get high to be close enough to pitch Soup R' Crackers to the rapper, and under the influence of pot his knack for saying the wrong thing became worse than ever.

• Lizzie Caplan and Jane Lynch got to play off each other as the most clued-in and most clueless members of the ensemble as Casey and Constance battled for young Taylor's soul, with Casey briefly appearing to win the John Hughes battle when Taylor re-embraced her old loser friends, but Constance ultimately triumphing when the popular kids came to take Taylor away from reality. A brutal, and brilliant, punchline.

• Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr didn't have quite as much to do, but Hansen got to play physical comedy as Kyle tried to score with Leonard's wife without actually kissing her, and Starr got to add new layers of creepy to Roman with the way he tried to hit on one of the 16-year-old party guests, and with the indignant tone to his voice as he said, "I have a prestigious blog, sir!"

Beyond that, we got some terrific guest performances. JK Simmons made Leonard's completely artless swearing sound pretty damned artful, Breckin Meyer did one of the better Matthew McConnaughey impressions I've heard, and Kevin Hart made something new out of the smarter-than-you-expect rapper archetype. Even Joey Adams was fine in the first role I've seen her in since the "Veronica Mars" guest appearance that no doubt led to this one.

Again, I don't have a lot to say, except the most important thing of all for a comedy: "Taylor Stiltskin Sweet Sixteen Party" made me laugh -- a lot.

What did everybody else think? And did the Valhalla Catering uniforms our team had to wear as last-minute replacements look more or less dorky than the traditional pink bow tie uniforms? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Sin Say Shun Awards Afterparty": Pay cable is for porn

Spoilers for tonight's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I warn you, seriously, that this post may not be suitable for work, or church, or many other places where frank discussions and depictions of the adult film industry wouldn't be welcomed...

"It must be great not having hang-ups." -Henry
"Yeah." -Roman

Last week, some people asked why "Party Down" couldn't have been pitched to a broadcast network, where it might have found a larger audience. Aside from the higher level of executive interference with network shows (see the out-of-whack guest star-to-Trevor/Claire screentime ratio on Rob Thomas' "Cupid" remake), being on broadcast TV would make a wonderfully, hilariously filthy episode like tonight's impossible.

On broadcast (and probably on basic cable, except maybe FX), you don't have Casey reluctantly passing around cocktail franks with the beans attached, you don't have Kyle inspecting various porn starlets' surgical work, you don't have characters taking Ecstasy to get extra-amorous, and you sure as heck don't have an entire set piece around Ron's gigantic, flaccid male member(*).

(*) Survey time! Faker-looking prop penis: Ron's, or Dirk Diggler's at the end of "Boogie Nights"?

Ken Marino continues to do hysterical -- and, given the episode's subject matter, surprisingly subtle -- work, here with Ron's inner struggle over whether to whore himself out for the sake of his Soup R' Crackers, and particularly his growing shame as creepy porn magnate Guy Stanislaus(**) kept bringing people in to take a look at his trouser snake, and then to see it rise up.

(**) Played by Mather Zickel, whom you might know as Mike Powers from "Reno 911," or as the best man in "Rachel Getting Married."

And yet for all the R-rated (and above) humor that had me giggling, the episode's best moment had relatively mild content, as well as another (much briefer) inner struggle, as Roman kept himself from scoring with the porn actress because he just had to go on a rant about how fantasy and sci-fi are two different things, and how stupid fantasy is. Oddly, "CSI" had a similar scene in last night's sci-fi-themed episode, but I saw this one first, and it was better set up, not only by Roman's failures earlier in the episode, but everything in previous episodes about how Roman needs to define himself as intellectually superior to the people around him. A great gag, and he's now become such a tool that I didn't even feel bad that he missed his shot.

Lots of other funny stuff throughout the episode -- I particularly liked Adam Scott in the final scene taking the DVD ad copy way too literally -- as well as the first appearance by Ken Jeong (yet another member of the Apatow Family Players) as Ron's oft-discussed boss Mr. Duck, who turns out to be much less of a hard-ass than Ron keeps suggesting. (That, or he was too drunk/high/happy to be around porn actresses to care about Casey being on Ecstasy or any of the other screw-ups of the night.)

Still loving this show, and next week's episode (guest-starring the always-awesome J.K. Simmons) is even better.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Investor's Dinner": Whose number one? Whose number two?

Quick spoilers for Friday night's "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I request another pancake...

"Well, you know what they say about a gun in the first act, Ron." -Casey
"First act of what?" -Kyle

Another solid, funny outing, and a particularly strong showcase for Ken Marino. Even though Ron's actually not in that much trouble if Tony(*) walks out the door -- all he has to do is put a stop payment order on the check, right? -- his transition from righteous anger and bravado to literally pissing himself was beautifully played, and perfectly set up with the earlier scene where Ron saw Tony get a look at the prop gun.

(*) Played by our latest "Veronica Mars" alum, Daran Norris.

Meanwhile, I like how the writers are handling both the Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr characters. It would be so easy to make Ryan be a complete jerk, and Roman be the sympathetic one, but instead Ryan's oblivious but ultimately a decent guy (as he bails on his rich new buddy after the guy makes fun of an oblivious Constance), while Roman's the ass who's looking up the guest's skirts.

And I continue to be glad the show went the "NewsRadio" route with Henry and Casey, as it's more amusing to see her try to distance herself from him, and him try to reel her in by calling the sex "adequate," than it would be to watch one pining for the other. Lizzy Caplan was also involved in that delightfully underplayed moment where Casey takes the incriminating camera-pic of Ron scraping off the dog poop, and Ron very quietly whimpers, "No," and Casey almost as quietly says, "Yes."

Really digging this show -- quite a bit more, so far, than Rob Thomas' other new project.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "Pepper McMasters Singles Seminar": Seniorlicious!

Quick spoilers for "Party Down" episode three coming up just as soon as I make a bong out of cheese...

Of the three episodes to date, "Pepper McMasters" featured the highest concentrated dose of Jane Lynch as Constance(*), which means your appreciation of it is likely going to depend entirely on how much you like Lynch. My buddy Fienberg thinks she's a less-is-more actress, and considered this the weakest of the three that were initially sent out for review. I've always dug her in parts both big and small (after Fred Willard's "Wha happen?" schtick, she's by far the funniest thing in "A Mighty Wind"), and so I got a kick out of watching Constance grapple with running into a relatively age-appropriate ex-boyfriend at a singles mixer for senior citizens.

(*) Was I the only one who came away from the pilot, where Constance was all over the female guests at the block party, assuming she was a lesbian? Rob Thomas tells me that "Constance is supposed to be very, very straight." Live and learn.

And it helped that said ex-boyfriend was played by the great Ed Begley Jr. (also an inner circle member of the Christopher Guest Players), and that the episode managed to maintain the farcical structure of the first two without having to again resort to Ron again seeming to violate a major social taboo. Instead, he got sucked into the elaborate double-fake, where the wheelchair guy getting up and walking turns out to be a plant by Pepper McMasters, who then takes advantage of Begley's unexpected collapse and recovery to claim that was also all part of the show.

Meanwhile, Thomas and company follow the "NewsRadio" model of not wasting much time on the obligatory Unresolved Sexual Tension by having Casey and Henry have sex in episode three, and they give Kyle a measure of revenge on Roman, who more or less deserves it, between the eyebrow-shaving incident from the pilot and the scene where he starts assigning a number value to Casey's body parts.

Good stuff. I have four more episodes on DVD (there are, I think, 10 total this season), and if I can ever find the time to watch them, I think I'll be a happy man.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Party Down, "California College Conservatives Union Caucus": The Cuban cigar crisis

Quick thoughts on the second episode of "Party Down" coming up just as soon as I think about Jim Abbott...

I liked this one even more than the pilot, in that it took a very broad target (Young Republicans) and managed to tell unexpected jokes about them. The running gag about the guests giving Henry a hard time about quitting was especially good, and not just because some of the lines were being delivered by Jason Dohring (here working alongside fellow "Veronica Mars" alum Alona Tal).

I like the way that Henry, because he's the one member of the team who has no real plan in life, winds up envying the lifestyles of each week's guest. The others all want to be actors, or writers, or Super Crackers managers, but Henry can admire being a suburban family man, or even a passionate young conservative, because any of those seem better than being known only as the "Are we having fun yet?" guy.

I don't know that the payoff to the Schwarzenegger plot, with Ron having to burn a flag while all the guests watched, worked as well as last week's similar stain stick joke, probably because it was so similar. I don't want to see every episode end with Ken Marino violating (or appearing to violate) some great social taboo while a guest looks on in horror, as diminishing returns have already set in.

Still having a good time with this one. What about the rest of you? Click here to read the full post

'Party Down' review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review the very funny new Starz comedy series "Party Down," co-created by "Veronica Mars" man Rob Thomas. If you don't get Starz, or are just impatient for tonight's show (what with the cast being populated by plenty of familiar faces from "VM," "Freaks and Geeks" and other things that make you feel good), Starz.com has the first episode available for on-line viewing.

What with tonight including the "BSG" series finale, the "Dollhouse" episode that will cure world hunger, and lots of other stuff I need to write about, I don't have time to do a separate review post for the premiere, so discuss it here -- and, for the benefit of people who aren't going to be watching it online, don't put any kind of spoilers (giving away jokes, twists, whatever) until after 11 p.m. You can say, "I watched the streaming version, and I liked/hated it," but no more detail than that, please. Anything I consider borderline gets deleted. Click here to read the full post