Show: Outsourced

Channel: NBC

When: Thursday, 9:30 p.m. 

Remotes: 1/4

 

With the kind of Thursday comedy lineup that NBC brings with ‘Community,’ ’30 Rock’ and ‘The Office,’ viewers should have had high hopes for its newest comedy, ‘Outsourced.’ But once the show actually aired, those hopes were dashed.

 

The premise should have been golden. Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport), a young man on the rise at his call center job at the Kansas City-based Mid America Novelties, returns from a managerial convention to find his entire office has been outsourced to India. He has two choices: be unemployed or manage the company in India. 

 

Within the first few minutes of the show, Todd meets his assistant, Rajiiv Gidwani (Rizwan Manji), whose idol worship of his American boss is more pathetic than comical. It gets even worse when Todd walks into his new office. His desk is placed on a stage-like platform resembling the Oval Office, while every other desk in the office sits at his feet. 

 

Todd clearly has his work cut out for him. His employees aren’t selling the novelty items because they don’t understand their uses. Enter cliché pop culture educational session. Todd teaches his employees how to ‘think like an American.’ With a montage reminiscent of Rachael Leigh Cook learning to be cool in ‘She’s All That,’ the employees’ pop culture lesson was a trick that’s been recycled time and time again. 

By the end of the first episode, a quiet employee has sold her first novelty to an American customer over the phone — rubber poop and fake vomit. Alas there is hope for the fledgling, seemingly useless call center that has been placed in Mumbai. 

 

The kernels for comedy are there: The company sells ridiculous items, such as toilet seat-shaped coffee mugs and creepy mini garden gnomes. The whole cross-cultural shock should stand on its own as a good source for legitimate one-liners. But instead of using creativity to really carve out some good jokes and hilarious situations, the writers just get lazy and make obvious, un-funny gaffes. 

 

Yes, he’s an American who now works in India. They have accents and want to learn what hip-hop is, and he doesn’t understand why he can’t eat a hamburger in his new hometown. Funny? No. What really makes this show look like a failure, especially next to its fellow NBC comedies, is the writers don’t attempt to be creative with their material. They rely on the obvious to be funny, but even in real life, these things aren’t fall-over-and-laugh quality. Instead of pushing for legitimately funny situations, the show lazily relies on stereotypes that make the entire product borderline offensive. 

 

Originality and real story lines could save this show. The acting isn’t bad, and the concept is possible — the show is based on a 2006 movie of the same name by John Jeffcoat. Right now, ‘Outsourced’ lacks legs to keep pace with all the other well-established comedies. 

 

 

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