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Tag: TV

Party Down: The Funniest Show on TV that Nobody Watched

Lizzy Caplan on the fans of Party Down, in the wake of its cancellation:

“Our fans, even though we didn’t have huge numbers, were exactly the type of people we were hoping to impress: smart and vocal and funny and almost snobby about their comedy preferences. You look at hugely-rated shows like ‘Two and a Half Men’ that get like a gazillion viewers – I have the sneaking suspicion that not one of them watches ‘Party Down.’ I think if a girl who liked ‘Party Down’ found out that her boyfriend liked ‘Two and a Half Men,’ she would break up with him. I wish we could have reached a larger audience, because more people would have seen it and we might still be on, but it always sort of felt like the appeal for our fans was that the show felt like it was theirs. It belonged to them, and they discovered it, and they told their circles of friends. It was like a secret club of people in the know.

“Of course, secret clubs don’t usually lead to TV show pick-ups.”

Yet another show that has gone long before its time.  You should definitely seek this out wherever you can find it – I’m sure the two seasons will be available on DVD soon, or in the usual places online.  This was definitely one of the best comedies on television in the past two years.  Unfortunately, apparently nobody watched it.

What I love about 24

Yes, I admit it, I love 24!  The Day 6 debacle aside (man, that was a terrible season), I have enjoyed every season, regardless of the plausibility issues and repetitive trappings and all of it…  and this review of the first two episode arc of Day 7 on AV Club gets to some of why I love it:

“And then there’s Jack himself. As part of the promotional material Fox sent us for Day Seven, I got a McFarlane Toys “action figure” of Bauer in his most familiar pose: two-hand gun draw, satchel slung over one shoulder, getting ready to ruin some bad guy’s day. Looking at the toy now—it’s sitting on top of my cable box—it occurs to me that the main reason I dig 24 is that at heart it’s a super-hero show. Sure, it obeys semi-realistic conventions, and Jack has no readily acknowledged powers, but c’mon; he’s got a regular outfit (jeans, dark shirt, bullet proof vest), he can do things nobody else can, and in the end, he always wins, even while his personal life turns into utter shit. As played by Keifer Sutherland, Jack is the ultimate proof of the Hitchcock maxim: you love a guy who’s good at his job. Only Bauer goes beyond good to be damn near unstoppable—and instead of making the series fall over its own ridiculousness, each new evidence of Jack’s constancy makes you root for him all the more.”