Party Down understood cringe comedy better than any other US sitcom – thank God it’s back

The brilliant but obscure sitcom, about a struggling LA catering company, was cancelled after just two seasons back in 2010. Now it’s back for six more episodes, with nearly all the original cast returning. It feels like a minor miracle, writes Louis Chilton

The tender barman: Adam Scott in season three of ‘Party Down’ (Starz/Lionsgate+)

It came as no surprise when Party Down was cancelled. The year was 2010, and the scrappy, glowingly reviewed sitcom about an LA catering company had languished in obscurity for 20 episodes before finally calling it quits. Its paltry viewing figures – dipping as low as 68,000 US viewers for one episode – didn’t help. Nor did the fact that the Starz network was still in its unsteady early days of original programming. To cap this off, Party Down had already seen one cast member, Jane Lynch, leave at the end of season one; the end of season two would see lead Adam Scott poached by Parks and Recreation on NBC. So, all things considered, cancellation was somewhat inevitable. Its revival, though? That’s another story. The six new episodes of Party Down – released weekly on Starz in the US and Lionsgate+ in the UK, beginning this Friday – seemed, for a long time, a mere pipedream.

At the heart of the original series is Henry Pollard (Scott), an apathetic employee at the Party Down catering company. Henry is a failed actor – of considerable talent, we come to understand. His co-workers are also on the fringes of show business: plucky comedian Casey (Lizzy Caplan), dippy ex-actor Constance (Lynch), embittered sci-fi writer Roman (Martin Starr) and himbo-ish actor-musician Kyle (Ryan Hansen). Bar Henry, they all consider themselves true artists who just happen to make a living handing out hors d’oeuvres. Ken Marino, meanwhile, plays their uptight, buffoonish manager Ron Donald.

Despite its measly ratings, the series was a cult hit. In the years since its cancellation, Party Down’s reputation has only strengthened among its small but ardent fanbase. Yet when it was announced in April 2021 that six new episodes were being produced, more than a decade after the last ones, the celebrations were only tentative. For one thing, the series was returning without Caplan, due to scheduling conflicts. Caplan’s will-they-or-won’t-they with Scott formed the main emotional through-line of the original series; Party Down wasn’t just losing a great comic actor but also a key point of investment for the audience. (She is functionally replaced in the new series by Jennifer Garner, while Tyrel Jackson Williams, and Zoë Chao also join the cast.) The problems ran deeper than just this, though. The time jump drastically changed the premise. A bunch of 30-year-olds working an excruciating dead-end job while they pursue their dreams? That’s one thing. Age them all by 10 years, and the picture becomes a whole lot bleaker. Miraculously, however, the new episodes succeed despite these reservations. They’re far better than they had any right to be.

The genius of Party Down always lay in its premise. Each episode functions as a standalone set piece, staged at a different party the team are catering – a corporate retreat; a spoilt teen’s Sweet Sixteen; an orgy. They’re not bottle episodes by any traditional definition, but they dutifully obey the Aristotlean unities of time and place. It’s a format that allows the characters to bounce off each other, and the many left-field guest stars, with ease; the settings also allow plenty of scope for showbiz satire. It’s a sitcom that leans heavily into the sit, with our central characters generally operating around the edges of some more bombastic drama involving whatever bizarre party is employing them.

But it wasn’t just the premise that made Party Down one of the best sitcoms of the modern era. All the performances were first-rate. Scott nailed the dry-witted straight man persona he would soon replicate and sanitise for Parks and Rec‘s Ben Wyatt. Marino was a tour de force as Ron, a desperate, pathetic mess stuffed into a too-tight shirt and a haircut you could set your watch to. What set Party Down apart from its contemporaries, too, was a willingness to get ugly, to revel in discomfort. It is perhaps the closest American TV has come to replicating the cringe comedy of The Office. Where shows like Parks and Rec and the US Office heaped sugar on the nastier side of Gervais’s satire, Party Down leaned into it: this was a story of flawed people in a demoralising situation, and it wasn’t afraid to let bad things happen to them.

Ryan Hansen, Zoë Chao, Martin Starr, Adam Scott, and Tyrel Jackson Williams in ‘Party Down' (Starz/Lionsgate)

The new episodes may not reach the peaks of the original run’s best episodes – ones like the vaunted “Steve Guttenberg’s Birthday”, in which the gang arrive at the Police Academy star’s house only to find there is no party to cater – but they feel like the same show, even after all this time. The new cast members integrate surprisingly smoothly, and, crucially, the six episodes don’t overreach. That is to say, rather than attempt to cram the episodes full of 12 years of frustrated “what ifs” and over-gestated emotional pay-offs, the new Party Down mostly opts for six goofy standalone larks, replete with shock humour, visual gags, and acidly funny repartee.

For diehard fans, the new series is a gift we never expected. For everyone else, it’s hopefully an elbow in the ribs, urging you to finally give this brilliant series a try. “Why don’t they make funny sitcoms anymore?” It’s a refrain I see often from critics and viewers alike. They still do – you just have to show up to the right party.

‘Party Down’ is available to stream on Lionsgate+ in the UK, with new episodes arriving each Friday starting 24 February