Party Down Wrap Party

Party Down is a comedy about a catering company. Sounds pretty benign and forgettable, until you look at the people involved: Jane Lynch (who left after the first season for a little show called Glee), Rob Thomas (who helmed the under-appreciated yet excellent Veronica Mars), and Adam Scott (now of Parks & Rec fame). Not to mention the talented Ken Marino, whose comedic timing has been honed on projects like The State, Reno 911, and one of my favorite guilty pleasures: Reaper.

The problem with this show is the same problem with other very good shows that suffered from low ratings: they couldn't be explained in a 30 second spot well enough to draw interest from the masses whose attention spans are already maxed out. Arrested Development, Pushing Daisies, and Firefly are just a few that were too brilliant for buzz words. Party Down is just the latest in a long list. This is a topic that's been just about talked to death.

I'm here to talk about something else. Do you remember about 15 years ago, when HBO was just a movie channel? Before Sopranos, Big Love, and True Blood? Did anyone really appreciate Showtime before Dexter and Weeds? They were all just movie channels. Mostly the same, actually. What has set them apart from other channels are the shows they produced. This made them a hot commodity on America's cable boxes and gave them a reason to get movie channels at all instead of just picking up something at Blockbuster.

Starz doesn't have a lot going for it. I personally don't subscribe to the channel. They have a whole section on Netflix so I can stream whatever's in their catalog through my Wii or computer. That's how I got hooked on Party Down, actually. It's also why I started watching their other original series, Gravity.

Gravity was a horrible show. Not funny, not interesting, not a surprise that it was canceled. I haven't even heard of the rest of the original shows on starz.com. In short, Starz doesn't have a lot else to fall back on.

If they'd bothered to really advertise the show, they might have seen some change in ratings. After decades of being almost a cult favorite in the US, Doctor Who recently started an aggressive advertising campaign here and, despite a lackluster season, they've seen their ratings rise.

This is relevant to Starz and Party Down because the premise for Doctor Who (a 945 year old Time lord travels around time and relative space in a police box with a foxy young lady) is not enough to explain in a 30 second spot, either, but it's gaining ground in a market that's already heavily saturated with sci-fi. In fact, despite the American fan base already established franchise, everyone - including the BBC - was surprised at how well the new series debuted.

Starz made a mistake canceling this show. Their original movies aren't any good, their other series aren't much better, and they could really do worse than be the channel with the show that launched under-appreciated actors into great careers.

The other shows mentioned here - Arrested Development, Pushing Daisies, Firefly - were all on stations that had something else to fall back on. What does Starz have to fall back on? Nothing worthwhile. Getting rid of the one show worth a damn isn't the wisest move when you don't have anything else to offer. In the world of heavy-hitting premium movie channels, you have to bring more than the same old, same old to the table.

Most of the movies on Starz's lineup are also on HBO, Showtime, streaming on Netflix, and even on Starz's sister channels under the Encore label. The rest aren't even worth talking about. (Those are streaming on Netflix, too.)

Having quality original programming is important. Having a quality series is important because it will bring people back for more, and net you more subscribers. In losing the show that makes Starz unique and interesting, they are losing my only reason to give their channels a second thought, much less my subscription dollars.