Pilot Review: Work It

Work It (ABC)
Premiered January 3 at 8:30pm

It’s only the first week of January and ABC has already premiered the worst new show of the year. The demise of “Man Up” meant that ABC needed to find another mildly depraved show about men that aren’t terribly manly, and here it is. This show is pure F minus material, offering a grand total of zero laughs and a whole lot of arguably offensive and inarguably dumb jokes about male and female stereotypes. Watching even a moment of this show requires enormous suspension of disbelief, and while sitcoms have always needed to take some liberties, this show goes way beyond anything coherent to offer up a horrendous misuse of primetime television hours. This show boasts no redeeming qualities, and offers its actors a rather miserable fate. Amaury Nalasco, once among the most enticing characters on “Prison Break,” has perhaps the most lamentable role, though that status is reserved for Rebecca Mader, who has suffered through a boring role on “No Ordinary Family” and now this after starring one of ABC’s most popular shows ever, “Lost.” Benjamin Koldyke is just the latest in a line of boing lead actors in a dull role with much flashier supporting players, and Beth Lacke is particularly irritating as his wife Connie. Thirty minutes of this horrendous show was more than enough for me, and I can’t imagine that ABC is going to want to subject its viewers to this abysmal programming for much longer, and I certainly won’t be back for another round.

How will it work as a series? Now that both Lee and Angel have jobs as saleswomen, it’s just a matter of time before their identities are discovered by their idiot coworkers, but I think this show will hold off on that for a while (if it even stays on air long enough) so that the two of them can have as many gender-agonizing pratfalls as humanly possible.
How long will it last? The fact that it’s themed somewhat appropriately to follow “Last Man Standing” doesn’t help it one bit since “Man Up” was also similar, and that failed quickly. ABC was perfectly happy to fill the freshly vacant half-hour with repeats of the successful Tim Allen comedy, so I suspect that should happen again before February.

Pilot grade: F-