It’s long past due that I reviewed this show that I called the Lebron James of shows-picked-to-be-cancelled (don’t think too hard about thea analogy) which was as predicted added to the great list of shows cancelled after a mere two episodes. Still, late is usually better than never, and if I didn’t watch every new broadcast show eventually I wouldn’t be staying true to myself so here it is. The show, for those who don’t know, is in a sentence, about two unemployed best friends who discover that women can get jobs in the terrible economy but men can’t, and thus dress up as women to get said jobs.
Let’s start out by saying that this show is cringe-worthy bad, hard to watch bad, and not hard to watch in a British comedy sense, where it’s like a traffic accident that you want to look away but you always want to watch, more that you just don’t want to watch. I had to watch the show in approximately 2 to 3 minute segments just to get through it at all. Maybe a half a dozen comedies a year make you truly feel like you’re losing brain cells watching them (not that anyone actually knows what that would feel like, but let’s let that pass) and this is the worst of them all. This is dare I say, more insulting than 2 Broke Girls, and I don’t pass that judgment lightly.
With the assumption accepted that the show is mind-bogglingly awful, let’s move on with some specific comments. First, the show takes place in St. Louis. What a sad fate for a proud city. Not that I have any strong feelings about the city one way or another, but it seems like the Gateway to the West deserves if not one great series, one half-way decent one. The bestSt. Louiscurrently has is either AfterMASH or The John Larroqette Show. It deserves better than Work It. (New great idea: Power Rankings of shows by city, or cities by show – look for it soon).
The main character I recognized from his stint playing Robin’s co-anchor and serious boyfriend in an arc of How I Met Your Mother. In addition, Rebecca Mader, who played Charlotte in Lost, plays the bitchy office top dog, who is poised for sales competition with the main character.
The show is simply jam-packed with insulting shows about seriously out-moded gender stereotypes, and without a hint of winking self-awareness under which the creators could at least cover themselves, claiming everything is done in an ironic fashion. It reminds me of the insulting stereotypes rife in Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing, but worse. It takes until just two and a half minutes into the episode for the jokes about women to begin, as the worst character in a show of terrible characters, third friend Brian talks about a world in which women will take over, leaving only some men women will take as sex slaves, but not the good kind of sex – kissing and cuddling, and can you believe it, listening! Boy, do women love to make men listen to them, an extremely emasculating pursuit.
In the theme sequence, the creators have their names appear in big letters. I hope, for their sakes, that they’re pseudonyms, because otherwise it’s a big sign saying “don’t hire me ever again!” Lucky for them few enough people were watching to ever remember their names.
In order to live in Work It’s world, we have to accept that people could unquestionably accept both of these men terribly dressed in far lower than Mrs. Doubtfire quality drag as women. There’s so many insulting jokes about women that it would be impossible to list them all.
The single best part of the show may have been that in the closing seconds my file includes a promo for “Gary Busey and Ted Haggert: The Premier of Celebrity Wife Swap” which I still don’t believe is real.
Will I watch it again? Well, obviously I don’t have a choice, since it will not air more than two episodes. The answer would obviously be no anyway, but I still think it bears wondering how this ever got on the air. On ABC, too, which while having far from a perfect record on sitcoms, has largely focused on laugh-track free slightly smarter sitcoms of late like Modern Family and Happy Endings. I hope someone is laughing out there who created this show as a giant joke just to see if could ever get on the air. At least one person would laugh then.
Television, the Drug of the Nation 
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