74

Party Down is the great I-told-you-so show: turned down by everyone, mishandled and dropped after two series by the network that did pick it up, and now fairly regarded as a classic. Co-creator and show runner John Enbom recalls making the pitch:

"One of the problems we’d been encountering was every executive that we’d be pitching would fill in their version of what the show was. We had such a specific idea for how the characters would be, what the tone of the show was, what it would feel like. And we felt like everywhere we pitched it, they would either like it or dislike it for reasons that were completely unrelated to what we thought it was."

Alan Siegel at The Ringer has compiled an oral history of the show.

Cast member Jane Lynch told The Hollywood Reporter why the series never got its due:

"It was around the time of The Office and Parks and Rec, even though that was later than us, and it was a workplace comedy with really good actors. It might have been because Starz was so new, maybe Starz didn't know what to do with it. I don't think we got bad reviews, I think we just didn't get reviews at all; I think 74 people watched it or something like that."

Party Down is back for a six-part revival. No Lizzy Caplan but as Ryan Hansen put it, "in 12 years, people are going to love Season 3."