Party Down

Our Review

The funniest show nobody watched, and the most accurate depiction of the service-industry dream deferred ever made. A crew of Hollywood wannabes — a failed actor, an aspiring writer, a comedian who’s given up — cater parties in Los Angeles, wearing pink bowties and dying inside. Every episode is a different event (a sweet sixteen, a porn-awards afterparty, a rock-magazine farewell) and a new humiliation for people who thought they’d be famous by now.

Adam Scott’s Henry — the ex-actor whose one commercial made him “Are we having fun yet?” famous — is the deadpan anchor; Ken Marino’s Ron Donald, the team leader who believes in Service with a capital S, is the oblivious heart; Jane Lynch’s Constance rounds out one of the great ensemble casts ever assembled. Twenty episodes of comic despair, canceled in 2010, revived in 2023 with most of the cast intact. It’s a show about failure that refuses to be sad about it.

Verdict: Watch it. The cult comedy every other cult comedy gets compared to.