2) Party Down
The premise of Party Down may have had more potential than just about anything television has offered before: it chronicled the lives of members of a Los Angeles catering company, most of whom were members as a temporary gig until they landed their hoped-for big breaks as actors, writers, or comedians. Each episode essentially took place at a different party they would be catering, ranging from the AVN Awards party to Steve Guttenberg’s birthday. Just the premise alone screamed potential, and in a rare move, the creators decided to make the show live up to that potential.
Party Down had some of the richest characters and most outrageous set pieces in TV comedy history, but also mixed in some emotionally true dramatic moments. It’s remarkable that the show didn’t shy away from the depressing nature of its premise—people who are clinging to this pipe dream of making it big in Hollywood—but embraced and explored it. It’s kind of the opposite of The Office (the American version), where the characters were once unsatisfied with their boring desk jobs but then became super sentimental and loved their co-workers like their family.
Party Down is not a family; it’s a company these people work for to pay their bills. The biggest weakness of the show was it was on Starz, which most people probably don’t even know if they subscribe to or not, and so it got awful ratings.
There’s still speculation of a movie in the works, although the cast all seems to be pretty busy working on awesome projects like Burning Love, and Childrens Hospital (both of which should be watched by everyone in the world).
