NBC Cancels 'Outsourced': An Anti-Protest Letter
TV is littered with the corpses of beloved shows with lousy ratings. You can't mention Terriers around one of its 10 viewers without hearing the president of FX is worse than Robo-Hitler. But what if programming did something smart?
TV is littered with the corpses of beloved shows with lousy ratings. You can't mention Terriers around one of its 10 viewers without hearing the president of FX is worse than Robo-Hitler. There are people ready to expose their children to toxic chemicals if the Make-A-Wish Foundation ever has enough money to finance an Arrested Development movie. Audiences are fiercely protective because they know that if four TV executives are stranded on an island with a crate of food and a can opener, three will starve to death and the fourth will choke on the can opener. But what if programming did something smart? Say they aired a sitcom about a charming jerk with no career options forced to work alongside people he looked down on? You'd have Community, a show so good it faces more cancellations than teenage pregnancy. Yet NBC protects it for benevolent, unknown reasons.
NBC giveth, and NBC taketh away
Well ... largely unknown. .
Each network has sitcoms it should be ashamed of. CBS has Big Bang Theory. FOX has FOX. ABC probably has something, but no one ever returns to tell the tale. Let's make CBS the designated hitter for ABC with Two & a Half Men, a show originally developed to enrage rodeo bulls. People who wait an hour for a table at Olive Garden on Friday nights really enjoy it, so it must fill some sort of void. Similarly, Big Bang Theory is just every other sitcom in nerd-drag, meaning the punchlines are "Sector 2814!" It seduces a lot of geeks by acknowledging but openly loathing them, just like their high school crush. When NBC commissioned Outsourced
Disco made a lot of things look like better ideas than they were.
The problem with focus group testing is determining what's good and what's just Stockholm Syndrome.
Also, he's Batman.
He fares better underneath The Sheen Threshold.
"PILOT"
The Premise:
When meeting his employees, Todd roundly insults them so they understand America won't tolerate any foreign nonsense just because it's their country.
The first of many instances where the show induces a moronic coma on a character.
The Reading:
Sikh of it all.
Findings:
"THE MEASURE OF A MANMEET"
The Premise:
Manmeet is too busy flirting with customers to pollute the world with Spencer Gifts merchandise. If you or I wrote this show, that would make him the hero, but Outsourced frowns on him despite saluting Todd for not doing his job of firing Manmeet.
It's kind of a one-sided friendship.
The Reading:
Unfortunately, that happened in an even direr scene.
Findings:
"PARTY OF FIVE"
The Premise:
Two Americans, two Indians and a sex-crazed Australian walk into a bar but there's no punchline. Outsourced
Violence is one way to solve a problem like Maria, but it's not recommended.
The Reading:
Findings:
Badergraph was responding better to the female characters than the male. One had dignity, another was Australian and therefore incapable of dignity and the third was funny in a deer-in-headlights fashion. Dared by Manmeet to love Asha, Todd emptied the contents of his personality on the innocent employee. This distressed Badergraph into abrupt shutdown amid the smell of burning metal. The final image, burned onto its screen, was a note asking me to forgive it for taking the coward's way out."TOUCHED BY AN ANGLO"
The Premise:
On this episode of LOL Indians! Todd touches his employees inappropriately, while the show does the same to our sense of humor. Sexual harassment hilarity ensues with the dexterity of a half-price children's party magician.
All that's missing is a rapping elderly white woman.
The Reading:
I was unable to turn Badergraph back on initially. But when it saw this red-hot, sexy sexual sexisode, something strange happened. It ... it rebooted itself. "Self-unit has categorized all that is unfunny in the universe!" it proclaimed. "What is left must be humor. And perhaps ... love?"Sparks spewed from Badergraph's housing as it tootled, "I have become self-aware!" which is more than OutsourcedFindings:
By now, I'd learned Outsourced's favorite joke was skittish Indians overreacting, like when Manmeet saw someone eating ribs:
Someone needs to explain to Outsourced's creators that WACKY:FUNNY::MARGARINE:BUTTER.
"TRULY, MADLY, PRADEEPLY"
The Premise:
Todd has decided to be in love with Asha, so his coworkers put all the effort in for him. Any doof can make his own sacrifices, but women like to know they'll be taken care of, so a real catch has an army of selfless servants he can fling aside. Madhuri gives up her dream ticket so Todd can take her place and sexually harass Asha someplace besides work.
They showed this from five slow-mo angles until all the joy was gone.
The Reading:
Findings:
It's OK if 80 percent of anything is crap. Nothing would get done if all art was too good to miss. But if you're going to relentlessly point out cultural differences, you might try having something to say about them. That is, something other than "This food makes me poop!" Because for all our differences, there are two truths that bind all humanity and sentient computers: Indian food is delicious, and Outsourced must be destroyed.Brendan McGinley writes a lot. Most of it is crap, though.
And see how the networks keep you watching in 5 Cheap Tricks TV Shows Use To Keep You Watching. Or learn about The 13 Most Ridiculous TV Shows to Ever Get Green-Lit.
