ABC premieres Work It tonight, a show about two dudes dressing up as women in order to get jobs during a “mancession,†and it’s gotten some of the absolutely worst reviews of any new show this season. The premise is offensive! The fact that anyone would think that these two huge dudes look like ladies is ridiculous! The set design is terrible and cheap! The very first joke in the pilot references Jodie Foster’s gang rape in The Accused! You know, normal bad sitcom stuff.
So whether you were considering watching this for some reason and need to be dissuaded, or you’re a comedy writer who didn’t get a sitcom picked up by ABC this year while this did and want to taste some of that sweet, buttery schadenfreude, here are some of the most cutting, brutal, and bilious quotes from the reviews of Work It:
“It’s the early frontrunner for the worst show of 2012, and it’s hard to imagine something else coming along to take its crown. But at the same time, there’s something so vaguely desperate about everybody involved in the production that it’s sort of impossible to hate this as much as it probably should be hated. It’s a bad show, but it really, really wants you to love it, like an animal that’s been run over and dragged itself on your doorstep to look up at you with sad, pleading eyes before dying. … I’m not recommending you watch this show beyond the first half hour, but there’s nothing else on tonight, and if you like staring slack-jawed at car crashes, well, I might have a show for you.â€
— Todd VanDerWerff, The AV Club
“The Disney Channel sitcoms I occasionally watch with my daughter have more respect for both their characters and audience than Work It does. Everyone is blind or a fool and every situation exists only to set up something vaguely resembling a joke. It’s hard to tell whether the show is most contemptuous of men, women or anyone dumb enough to watch it.â€
— Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
“I would love to surprise you and announce that Work It is a good dumb show, but my conclusion is sadly as predictable as this sitcom: Work It is bad dumb, memorably bad dumb, the kind of bad dumb show you will use in years to come as a benchmark for other bad sitcoms.â€
— James Poniewozik, Time
“I refuse to abandon the hope that this is all a big, silly joke on ABC’s part and that Work It will never air. But with only a few hours until the premiere, it’s evident the joke will be on viewers.â€
— Daniel Fienberg, HitFix
“Were Work It to offer something new to the debates and conversations about male and female gender roles, it might be worthy of our time. Instead, it will most likely be remembered for years to come, alongside My Mother, the Car and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, as one of TV’s truly bad ideas.â€
— Michael Abernethy, PopMatters
“Make no mistake, Work It is dreadful almost beyond comprehension: witless, tasteless, poorly acted, abominably written, clumsily directed, hideously lit and badly costumed. It’s so bad, in fact, that the people at ABC who ordered it should be locked in a room and forced to watch endless hours of bad British drag, the apparent inspiration for this sort-of comedy, until they’ve gotten their fill of asinine cross-dressing humor.â€
— Robert Bianco, USA Today
“What a dumb show.â€
— Linda Stasi, NY Post