Rob Thomas reviving Veronica Mars was great, except for the whole Logan thing. But it made us wonder when we were finally getting a Party Down revival. There’d been talks of some sort of revival for years, but nothing seemed to come of it. Well, are we having fun yet, because Starz just announced it’s reviving the show for a six-part limited series.
“Before the cast of Party Down became well-known television and movie actors and award winners, they were all wearing the same pink bowties as part of a less than competent team of Los Angeles cater-waiters while chasing their dreams of stardom on the STARZ series,” said Christina Davis, President of Original Programming for Starz in the press release. “Fans have been waiting more than 10 years for this revival to happen and we’re thrilled to be in development with Rob, Paul, Dan and John at the helm.”
Creator Rob Thomas added, “At the end of 2019, the Party Down cast and producers were all reunited at a retrospective for the show hosted by Vulture. We had such a good time that we wanted to find a way to get the team back together again. The cast is so busy these days that finding a window where we can do it may require trigonometry, but we’re determined to make it happen.” No word yet on when the revival will premiere but hey, maybe 2021 won’t be so bad after all!
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Ordinary Fucking People
I’m a little down on Starz because of the American Gods behind the scenes stuff. But with the Sam Esmail show and this they are definitely making moves. I’d also recommend The Rook, which is better than I had expected.
This is great!No can we please just do this for Happy Endings PLEASE. Seriously, WTF.
Wife and I just re-watched that series, so tragic that it ended so abruptly. Then we did it to ourselves again, and re-watched Better Off Ted. Why do the good ones always die so young?
can we please just do this for Happy Endings PLEASE. Yep, came here to say that. That recent pandemic-themed zoom reunion they did was hilarrious, and by far the best of any of these recent “reunions” whether they’ve been sincere attempts at series or just one-offs to benefit a charity.[Happy Endings’ cast was so good – not to dis any of their subsequent or past projects, but honestly it’s the best work I’ve seen any of those actors ever do.]
I liked the pandemic one, but I just recently watched the one from a couple years ago, i think from an EW TV festival, and that one was WAY funnier. But at this point I’ll take whatever we can get.
Pushing Daisies says hello.
Man, I loved that show. I still can’t see Lee Pace in any other role. But that only got one season. Happy Endings was dicked around for three years and then cancelled. I demand justice.
It had two seasons.
Terriers waves back.
I’m in, so long as it’s a hard sci-fi reboot.
The Party Down staff are awakened from cryostasis in the year 2497 when the all powerful AI known as Entity decides to throw a party in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the assimilation of the last human into its android collective.
the AI’s soulless eyes looked down upon Adam Scott as Scott awoke from his cold sleep. The machine’s monitor lowers itself, hovering just over Adam’s face as his eyes begin to open. Suddenly, a sound washes over the entire facility. It is unmistakable: “ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?”Fin.
I Have No Mouth and I Must Party Down
“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid we’re not having fun yet.”
I just want to see some clips from the original Dingleberries.
Also in, as long as all the characters are mini-ships that are part of one big thing.
NOT fantasy
“The shields are down to fifty-six percent, there’s a hull breach on deck six and the bacon wrapped shrimp are overcooked!”
Roman is going to be fucking insufferable in a post gamergate world
Yeah, with dragons!
magnicifent
Hopefully, the script made a direct TP roll-to-screen transition, without any of the usual studio shit.
I’m never gonna get my Gargoyles reboot, am I?
You will, but it’ll be called Gargoyle Babies and they’re all wearing diapers and being taken care of by a faceless nanny. Also it will be live action.
I shouldn’t have been holding that monkey’s paw when I said it.
Damn you Monkey’s Paw! Just once I wish you’d give me what I really want!(last finger on Monkey’s Paw curls up)oh no…
Have you tried turning your gargoyles off and back on again?
Why reboot it even? Just continue it (ignore TGC of course).
Oh buddy that monkey’s paw is a-curlin’
This was always my favorite Adam Scott role, and I am so happy that it’s coming back
Agreed on Scott. I think he is great at playing an asshole and while Henry isn’t a total douche like Derek in Step Brothers, say, he has a bitter edge that Scott really digs into well; he was great in Parks and Rec of course but Ben was a nicer nerd.
he’s just so impossibly good at being sarcastic. i imagine ryan reynolds sounds like adam scott in his head.
Mine is Griff on Boy Meets World.
My favourite is The Vicious Kind (some of the best acting I’ve seen from anyone), and then Party Down.
The Logan thing was awesome. It was well set up and completely justified. It gave weight to the ending. Just because it bummed you out doesn’t make it not good. Bad things happen in life too, you know.
I was hoping they’d do nine episodes, or a nonilogy. And if there’s time, twelve for a duodecilogy!
I’d be interested (I have both seasons on dvd, although I paid about $10 for that set) but there’s no way I’m bothering with subbing to Starz for this.
This is an odd one, as there’s no reason most of those characters would still be working together a decade on, and it would be fairly sad if they were. I hope it’s at a least a mix of old and new characters.
Yeah … I love the show, just rewatched it and it was even better than I remembered, but it ends at a very good place and coming back to it now would feel off, I think. On the other hand, there is some WHAS overlap in the cast, maybe they could do some fun prequel nonsense like that.
I loved this show and cast. The “are we having fun yet” really makes me laugh, especially when real life bosses and customers actually ASK me it when I’m working and all I can think of is Adam Scott losing his mojo after being asked to say it while getting a hand job.I hope the revival is good.
idk they all seemed like they could potentially still be losers back working in catering. i feel like a big part of the message of the show was that you’re always 2-3 bad situations away from being right back there.
Wasn’t the show always “fairly sad”? Anyway, I don’t think it would be hard to write it as if their careers in Hollywood had all stalled, forcing them back to catering – I think the challenge would be making it fresh (since that’s already what happened to Adam Scott’s character prior to S1, I think).
Yeah, but there’s a big difference in working that kind of shit job when you’re in your 20s/early 30s and when you’re in your mid-late 40s. In you’re 20s, it’s a job to pay the bills until you hit it big, in your 30s there’s the looming possibility of not hitting it big and maybe you should be doing something else with your life, and when you’re closing in on 50 and doing the same low-effort, low-pay shit with no other prospects your status of “bad at life” is pretty well solidified. The whole joke around Constance is that in her mind she’s forever 25 years old and living the Hollywood dream. You can’t exactly do that with the whole cast. (Though I could definitely see Kyle hitting it big and getting metoo’d back into catering over some “My Struggle” style stupidity). “The Holo-what?”
You could definitely do that with one or two of them, but more than that it’s going to feel very contrived. I think Marino, maybe Mullally, and one of the others should still be working there, build out a new cast around them, and we can see what the others are up to.
It was fairly sad. One thing that surprised me so much on my quar re-watch was how casually they handle Henry’s pill addiction. In one episode Lizzy Caplan gives him some oxy she nicked from a customer’s medicine cabinet and I can’t imagine a show doing that these days without it being some morose moment where they say something about getting help.
There’s also the fact that most revivals have been fine to terrible, but nothing with anything close to the quality or outsized importance left in our nostalgic memories of the originals. I’d argue that Party Down is a great candidate for a revival on paper: unceremoniously cancelled after a brief run well before it was run into the ground as a victim of its own success. There was theoretically a ton of gas left in the tank.
I remain wary.
A show about new staff that worked at parties the old cast are hosting separately. Key being they get pity work from people who used to have the same job.
After the final episode of the original run, I’m torn on whether I’d want to see ol’ Scrotum Phillips legitimately successful, digging himself out of another career drought with another stint in food service, or hosting a catered party for a “Where Are They Now?” episode on one-dimensional ad characters.
That’s the issue with revivals and sequels in general. Oh, so instead of continuing to develop and grow as human beings you just…hung around in the same apartment/bar/cafe/job/whatever dealing with the same petty shit year after year, decade after decade? That’s depressing. (Though, come to think of it, Seinfeld would probably be the best equipped to handle a revival.)
When I watched Party Down a decade ago I was in my early 20s and coming off a string of shitty service industry jobs so the show (especially Henry) really spoke to me.
I rewatched it last fall now that I’m in my 30s, and while it’s still hilarious the characters, are so much more pathetic.
I could see a couple ways for the cast to reunite – like SOME of them are still working catering, and end up working a party given by now-superstar Kyle (who’s married to the Megan Mullaly character maybe). That’s kind of obvious though and yeah, it would be very sad if they were all in the same job. Be nice to see all the characters with some form of happiness and success, but a reason for them to come together eludes me. A grand opening of Soup ‘r Crackers, once they’ve refinanced and renamed?Anyway – this show’s premise and mulitple settings was a stroke of genius, I always thought. I recently rewatched and it holds up beautifully. So… not sure how they’d do a reboot but I kinda don’t care. I’ll watch it.
Loved Party Down. Probably the best comedy hardly anyone saw. Especially when Jane Lynch joined. Hope they dont do it like the Arrested Development reprise. Each episode devoted to one character.
I posted this separately, but I agree that it would be odd to just have the old crew still catering, so I think what they should do is have a new crew (although with Ron still running it, still chasing that soup and crackers dream) and have the old crew individually be the hosts of the events for each episode.
Maybe they all work at a Soup ‘r Crackers now? You know, really up the patheticness of 40 year olds in low-rung food service?
This definitely sounds like an RDD.
This revival is not very punctual, it’s definitely an RDD(on’t).
How does it ever expect to one day own and operate its own Soup’R’Crackers, thee the fastest growing non-poultry, non-coffee franchise in all of southern California?
This is great! Now all Starz needs to do is put it on another network/service so people can actually watch!
wtf is starz lol
Where’s Firefly?
OH this is fantastic news! Party Down is a PERFECT show (so let’s not fuck it up, ok?)
This news has me so excited I’m going to down a whole bottle of whiskey in one go, someone please preemptively call an ambulance.
WOOO!!!!! DRON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Best news I’ve heard all day.
Am I the only person who didn’t sleep through ninth grade English class?
They can all work at Souper Crackers
Loved the original. I have nothing against Meg Mullaly, but I really hope Lynch comes back—-she was the real star of the original run.Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, J.K. Simmons better be in a few scenes.
Great news! Now do Happy Endings…. and on a network I have.
We appear to be living in the golden age of nostalgic TV revivals but to date they’ve been ranging from “yeah, okay” to “this makes me retroactively like the original run less,” so I’m skeptical. Sitcoms seem to particularly struggle with recapturing their old magic (looking at you, Arrested Development).
Yeah. “Twin Peaks: The Return” was the only one of these recent revivals to achieve any real praise. Although the MST3K revival managed to produce 3-4 episodes that rank among the show’s top 40.
If you count animated shows, Samurai Jack S5 is real good.
If you count animated shows, ANIMANIACS
and Ducktales
The Reno 911 revival was awesome, it would have almost been worth actually subscribing to a month of Quibi for. That random season of Beavis and Butthead that came from nowhere and disappeared just as quickly was great too.
The Brits routinely revive comedies that have been dormant for years. I can’t really speak to the quality of these, good or bad, but surely some of them must work, or they wouldn’t do it so much.
Britcoms are often written by one person and their seasons are 6-8 episodes long. Just from a logistics standpoint it’s a lot easier to get the old gang back together for a handful of half-hour episodes or an hour-long special or two.
Isnt that what this is?
Excellent! I somehow missed this series the first time around and only just finished watching it on Hulu last week. I am totally on board with catching up with these characters a decade later.
I want an episode where the event gets cancelled right before it starts, but the caterers are contractually required to walk around an empty room with trays of hors d’oeuvres for two hours.
Soup R’ Crackers stock goes crazy on Reddit threads
Oh wow, but now it feels like it may have been too long.
How ever will Ken Jeong get time away from the Masked whatever? At this point I just assume he has become one with his chair on that set.
One down. Now it’s time for Terriers. Or a Whedon-less Firefly.
Or just make a new series. With Firefly’s premise and cast. But with a new name, so we don’t have to give Whedon anymore credit than he deserves.
2021 off to a great start already…!…..wait, it’s March?
R U Talkin U2 to Me is prime Adam Scott ladies and gentsGreat podcast
Rob Thomas reviving Veronica Mars was greatNo, it really was NOT, and what happened to Logan is hardly the entirety of the reason why.I said it when both shows finished airing and I’ll say it again:
After the double helping of the fuckery that was VM4 and the final season of IZombie, Rob Thomas is dead to me as a showrunner.
What about Head Case, the better of the two Starz comedies?
Are we just going to forget that first reunion?
Here’s my armchair fantasy for how the plot goes: new cast of caterers (except for Ron), but each episode is at an event hosted by one of the former crew, each of whom did eventually manage to find some varying degree of success. That way the show can afford an episode or so each from the former members, several of whom have gone on to way greater fame and will undoubtedly be more expensive.
I hope that the reboot is a crossover with a Sliders reboot then they can go to different realities where each of the cast is the douche hosting the party.