Just a day after eviscerating Starz and their new dramatic series Crash, we might need to ready an apology. Variety reports that the network will be teaming with Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas to create Party Down, a new half-hour comedy series set to appear during the first quarter of 2009. And it actually sounds pretty good!

Down is about a group of six Los Angeles caterers who are starting to realize that their dreams of stardom have gone by the wayside. In the press release, Mr. Thomas compares his show to the BBC version of The Office, heady expectations to be sure; from reading the description, a better comparison might be Extras. No actors have been cast as yet, but Paul Rudd is listed as one of the shows executive producers, perhaps that means that he’ll have some role in the series’ initial ten-episodes. Since we happen to find Mr. Rudd pretty charming, we can only hope.

If you’re like us, you’re a little tired of cable shows about the more elite citizens of California: Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Unscripted, Weeds, Californication, the list goes on and on. In concept then, Party Down sounds quite appealing. Whereas the good-time party that Vince and the boys experience on Entourage feels immediately dated with the world economy in a constant state of worry, a series about some down-on-their-luck everymen and women could hit the spot. And at the very least, it’s nice to see that Starz is officially in the game of cable television original programming. In addition to Party Down, the network plans on announcing another hour-long drama in the coming weeks which they hope will be ready by summer 2009. In the grand scheme of television, another channel devoted to making original-ish content (lest we forget Crash) is automatically a good thing.

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