About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

Work It is every bit as terrible as it looks, with a painful premise about two guys who dress in drag to land jobs as pharmaceutical-sales reps.

Details

• Stars Ben Koldyke, Amaury Nolasco, Beth Lacke, John Caparulo, Rebecca Mader, Rochelle Aytes, Kate Reinders, Kirstin Eggers, Hannah Sullivan
• Created by Andrew Reich and Ted Cohen
• Airs Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. EST starting January 3, 2012, on ABC

Review

Work It has been the subject of online derision since it was announced in May 2011, and I’m sad to say that all of the speculation has turned out to be right. It’s indeed just as horrendous as it looked in early previews, with the moronic premise executed in the most unfunny, unimaginative way. Is it possible that a sitcom about two manly men who must dress in drag to score jobs could be entertaining and funny? It’s not likely, but it is possible, especially if the show had gone for a completely surreal or strange approach. After all, sketch-comedy shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The Kids in the Hall dressed their un-feminine male cast members up as women all the time, and it was pretty reliably amusing. It’s okay that the actors don’t look remotely convincing as women as long as the show isn’t trying to present a semi-realistic story. But Work It wants the audience to laugh at the absurdity of men in dresses -- and then also feel genuine emotions at the lame sitcom life lessons.

There has been some controversy surrounding the show’s premise, with gay-rights groups including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign protesting that it promotes negative stereotypes about transgender people. But the problem with Work It isn’t that it’s offensive to transgenders; the topic of transgender people is never even raised in the show, because main characters Lee (Ben Koldyke) and Angel (Amaury Nolasco) aren’t meant to be any variation on transgendered. An actual sitcom about a male-to-female transgender adapting to a new workplace could have been innovative and refreshing, but that’s not what Work It is at all. The two main characters are as straight as can be, and no one ever questions their sexuality or their gender identity.

Work It is, however, offensive to men and women and people with functioning brains, since it traffics in stale gender stereotypes and stretches believability for the entirety of its awful pilot. Lee and Angel are out of work thanks to the current recession, which the show somehow turns into a “mancession” (yes, this word is used), in which women can easily get jobs but men can’t. So the only jobs these two are able to land are as sales representatives for a pharmaceutical company, which is only interested in hiring women. Never mind that there was recently a whole movie (Love and Other Drugs) about a male pharmaceutical-sales rep, based on a memoir by a real person. Or that the reason given for the company only hiring women is that doctors find them attractive, and Lee and Angel make the most unattractive women around. Logic goes out the window so that these two dudes can awkwardly try to dress and behave as women.

And yet no matter how ungainly and masculine they look, no matter how deep their voices or dark their stubble, not a single character recognizes that these are actually men (unless everyone else is playing a cruel joke on them, which is a level of cleverness that this show could not achieve). Outside of the broad cross-dressing humor, Lee and Angel’s private lives are total sitcom clichés, especially Lee as the workaholic dad who doesn’t spend enough time with his family. Kate Reinders gets a couple of feeble laughs as Lee and Angel’s overbearing co-worker, but otherwise it’s sad to see talented actors like Lost’s Rebecca Mader stuck in this dreck. As awful as the previews looked for Work It, the end result is even worse.

Disclosure: A review screener was provided by the network. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.