Party Down-Season Two (2009) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio-for 2 episodes Outtakes-Behind the Scenes Featurette-promo
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	275:23 (Case: 271)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Bryan Gordon Fred Savage Rob Thomas
Studio Distributor	Starz Encore Ent. Anchor Bay Entertainment	Starring	Adam Scott Ken Marino Megan Mullaly
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Dual
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

     Cult cable comedy Party Down returns for its second and final season. Our review of the first season can be found here. This low-budget gem follows a group of hopefuls, wash-outs and never-was actors, comedians and screenwriters as they begrudgingly make ends meet as minimum-wage wait-staff working for party catering company "Party Down". The comedy is heavily improvised around fixed-story scripts.

     By and large this series continues with the same formula as the first season, the only change being that two of the episodes this time don't actually revolve around a catered event but focus exclusively around the core team of characters (one being their own little party at Steve Guttenberg’s house, the other being a company picnic). Following the events of the first season finale, the team dynamic has altered somewhat. Henry (Adam Scott) has taken over managing the crew and previous manager Ron (Ken Marino), now down-and-out after the failure of his life-dream business venture, has returned to the bottom of the ladder. In place of Jane Lynch and Jennifer Coolidge, who had moved on to bigger and better-paying things (the show has earned somewhat of a reputation as the parking lot for popular comedy bit-part actors on their way to bigger things), Megan Mullaly joins the cast as Lydia, seemingly bipolar mother of a budding child actor.

     As with the first season, the minor celebrity cameos abound. This season sees the return of JK Simmons, Joey Lauren Adams, Kristen Bell and Jane Lynch (whose first season character is on her way to marrying a sugar daddy on death's door). Also popping up are Steve Guttenberg, Paul Scheer, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Loretta Devine and Dave "Gruber" Allen. Season two readily lives up to the bar set by the first season and is consistently fun. Sadly, this is the final season of the show due to the departure of Adam Scott to the far less amusing Parks and Recreation.

Video

     The show is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced, in NTSC video. The NTSC video will mean that the video will be unplayable on some older televisions.

     The video is identical in quality to that found on the first season set. The show looks to have been recorded digitally and transferred flawlessly to DVD. Whilst the picture is not as stylish or carefully composed as many of its peers, the video looks quite natural and is easy to watch. The image is sharp. The colours palette is bright and quite eye catching. There is a good level of shadow detail in the image. There is no sign of compression artefacts or aliasing in the image and no sign of film artefacts at any point.

     Both discs in the set are dual layer disc, with layer breaks only occurring between episodes.

    There are no subtitles available on this disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The show is presented with a single English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kbps) stereo audio track.

     The audio is pretty basic but effective enough. The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times. The dialogue is at a good level in the mix and is well synchronized to the video.

     There is not much in the way of music in the show save for jazzy between scenes filler.

     There is no surround or subwoofer usage.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     A consistently amusing, heavily improvised sitcom, set in the LA party catering industry.

     The video and audio are decent. The extras are barely worth mentioning.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 editions are virtually identical, right down to NTSC formating.

    A consistently amusing, heavily improvised sitcom, set in the LA party catering industry.

    The video and audio are decent. The extras are barely worth mentioning.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall