Starz
So yeah, I’m back. Though fair warning: over my vacation, my niece in Michigan taught me how to make marshmallows from scratch, so it’s pretty much a matter of time until I bag the whole TV-criticism day-job thing and make my fortune in the lucrative and trendy small-batch-marshmallow business. But until then, a quick rehash of a few things that happened while I was out:
* Party Down was officially cancelled, a sad development but one that should have surprised no one, since its season 2 finale drew a viewership that would not fill a large-ish college football stadium. But it closed season 2 with an episode that works fittingly as a series finale, if an unwilling one.
The gang was reunited with Constance (season 1 regular Jane Lynch), who found love in the arms and oxygen tubes of an elderly producer. And closing on the bittersweet theme that has always driven the show—dreams, and the hard work it takes not to give up on them—it got Henry (Adam Scott) to finally venture back into acting, after consoling Casey (Lizzy Caplan) on her scene being cut from her Judd Apatow movie. As she told him, his words didn’t mean anything when he’d given up practicing them in life: “If you’re not crazy enough to believe it for you, how can you believe it for me?” After years of catering to more successful Hollywoodizens and being humiliated as the “Are we having fun yet?” guy, it’s Casey’s words, and his feeling for her, that finally leave Henry in that waiting room, ready to read for a role in Velour.
Scott was leaving as a cast regular regardless (to take a role on Parks and Recreation), but it would be nice to imagine the season 3 episode in which Party Down caters an event for the newly successful Henry Pollard. But it was as good a note as any to end on, showing us as Party Down always did, that the funniest and most important moments often come while you’re waiting for something else.
* Oscar winner Javier Bardem is going to be on Glee. I want Dame Judi Dench next.
* Larry King is leaving CNN this fall, because you do not watch him. I hope you’re happy now.
* The first pre-fall schedule shakeup happened, as NBC bumped back Love Bites, to be replaced by The Apprentice. NBC says the creator, Cindy Chupack, is leaving as showrunner for personal reasons, but the excerpt I saw at upfronts didn’t look that promising to me either.
* Steve Carell, confirming earlier expectations, is leaving The Office after next year. Steve Snyder wrote it up here last week. As I wrote before, I’d kind of like to see The Office use this as an opportunity to set an end date, a la Lost, and deliver one awesome, no-holds-barred last season. This will not happen. But in any case, the sitcom needed some kind of kick in the pants to break out of last season’s rut, and I hope this is it. Who should run Dunder-Mifflin next?