(RATINGS NOTE: THE TIME-SLOT FOR ABC'S 2D EPISODE OF WORK IT BEGAN WITH A 3-MINUTE LAST MAN STANDING OVERRUN ON THE EAST COAST, WHICH MAY MAKE OVERNIGHT RATINGS LESS ACCURATE THAN USUAL.)
A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to rear their ugly heads. The results can include changes to tone, pace, casting and even story. Here at THE SKED, we're going to look past the pilots and present reviews of the first regular episodes of this year's new series as well.Previously... on WORK IT: Lee (Benjamin Koldyke) and Angel (Amaury Nolasco) are buddies and former Pontiac employees who lost their jobs in the recession and find themselves unable to find any others which allow possession of a penis. Thus the very straight men are compelled to take work as phamaceutical saleswomen in an all-female office (Rebecca Mader, Rochelle Aytes, Kate Reinders, Kirstin Eggers), dressing in drag and hiding their jobs from their co-workers, Lee's wife and daughter (Beth Lacke and Hannah Sullivan) and their pal Brian (John Caparulo).
Episode 2: The second episode, written by series creators Ted Cohen and Andrew Reich, finds Lee and Angel done with their training and ready to start selling phamaceuticals. Lee discovers that Angel has an edge on him in sales because he's a more attractive and flirtatious "woman" with the doctor customers, thus teaching Lee that males who sell products do so on the basis of their confidence and knowledge, while successful ladies do so with their T & A. After flopping as a flirt himself, Lee is ultimately able to sell his products by confessing his extreme ugliness to the customer and promising that because he's so ugly, he'll have no choice but to provide particularly fine customer service. Along the way, he rescues Angel from his "date" with a doctor who got a little too interested in the "saleswoman."
Here's what didn't happen after the ABC brass watched the pilot for Work It and heard the responses of others who did: no one said "Oh my god, this is the the turd of the decade, hateful to every conceivable gender! If we're going to put this on the air, we must change it completely and make it something utterly different from what it started to be!" On the contrary, clearly ABC beheld what they had done and were pleased with it, because Work It is no less repugnant and incompetent now than it was when its pilot was produced.
It's important to note those twin layers of failure. Yes, of course Work It is hateful to both men and women (but let's be real, mostly to women, who are portrayed as bitchy schemers, airheads, sexpots, or some combination thereof, with the exception of "The Wife"), transvestites and transgenders, English people and Hispanics, doctors and pharmaceutical salespeople, former Pontiac employees and their wives and children alike. Hatefulness alone, though, in and of itself, isn't necessarily unentertaining--it's possible to gasp at some of the jokes on The League or Family Guy and still find them irresistibly funny. What makes Work It so special is that it mixes that hatefulness with awful timing, creakingly old-fashioned stories, and witless, thudding punch-lines. Work It is about as funny as a session of electro-convulsive therapy accompanied by a screeching laugh track.
The performances and direction are all dismal, but one can't blame the actors (the guest cast includes the extremely experienced and funny Stephen Tobolowsky) or the technicians. Reich & Cohen created and are writing this thing, ABC is putting it on the air, and on their heads it shall be.
Original Verdict: Change the Channel
Here's what didn't happen after the ABC brass watched the pilot for Work It and heard the responses of others who did: no one said "Oh my god, this is the the turd of the decade, hateful to every conceivable gender! If we're going to put this on the air, we must change it completely and make it something utterly different from what it started to be!" On the contrary, clearly ABC beheld what they had done and were pleased with it, because Work It is no less repugnant and incompetent now than it was when its pilot was produced.
It's important to note those twin layers of failure. Yes, of course Work It is hateful to both men and women (but let's be real, mostly to women, who are portrayed as bitchy schemers, airheads, sexpots, or some combination thereof, with the exception of "The Wife"), transvestites and transgenders, English people and Hispanics, doctors and pharmaceutical salespeople, former Pontiac employees and their wives and children alike. Hatefulness alone, though, in and of itself, isn't necessarily unentertaining--it's possible to gasp at some of the jokes on The League or Family Guy and still find them irresistibly funny. What makes Work It so special is that it mixes that hatefulness with awful timing, creakingly old-fashioned stories, and witless, thudding punch-lines. Work It is about as funny as a session of electro-convulsive therapy accompanied by a screeching laugh track.
The performances and direction are all dismal, but one can't blame the actors (the guest cast includes the extremely experienced and funny Stephen Tobolowsky) or the technicians. Reich & Cohen created and are writing this thing, ABC is putting it on the air, and on their heads it shall be.
Original Verdict: Change the Channel
Pilot + 1: CHANGE. THE. CHANNEL.
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