MISQUAH — Movie in the Park returned Friday night on the rec field, five weeks late and, by every measure the rec department keeps, the most successful showing since the series began in 2001. Lori Dahl counted a hundred and ninety-some in lawn chairs and blankets, which is roughly triple a normal night, and attributes the turnout to what she called “nine days of everybody being told to stay inside.”

The projector, which had been the summer’s chief question mark, performed without complaint from the first frame to the last. Dahl, who has spent five summers apologizing to crowds during reel changes, described its behavior as “willing,” and said she has stopped short of calling it fixed on the theory that the machine can hear her.

The title was a western — selected by the department after the online voting produced a three-way tie and, in Dahl’s judgment, “no clear mandate and one obvious troll.” Nobody had voted for it. Everybody watched it. The horses got applause twice.

The evening’s only interruption came about forty minutes in, when a bright meteor crossed above the screen from the northeast and roughly a third of the audience made the same involuntary noise at the same time. Sigrid Pelto, who had warned this page that the Perseids were building toward their peak this Wednesday into Thursday, was present, and was heard to say only, “That one’s early.” The film continued. Several children reported afterward that they preferred the meteor, which Dahl said she would pass along to the rec board as programming feedback.