Each week, I take a look back at a pilot from the 2010-11 season, first reviewed on my blog during that season. This week, I am looking at NBC's comedy flop Outsourced!
The Details:
Premiered: September 23, 2010 on NBC
Starring: Ben Rappaport, Anisha Nagarajan, Diedrich Bader, Parvesh Cheena, Pippa Black, Rebecca Hazlewood, Rizwan Manjt, Sacha Dhawan
Based on The Movie "Outsourced"
Developed for Television by: Robert Bordern
What I Thought Then:
"To be honest, I actually expected Outsourced to be worse than it was. The timing is good, the acting is decent, but the content is not."
"The show managed to be mildly offensive to both Indians and Americans. It's too bad the show couldn't rise above culture jokes and sex jokes because the talent is there."
"It's a unique show in a unique setting but too often takes the easy way out with the jokes."
"It doesn't seem likely that many Americans in this time of economic troubles and high unemployment would want to watch a show about outsourcing to India."
What Others Said:
"The fact that it's neither embarrassing nor deeply offensive - once it gets rolling, the show is actually quite charming - is a credit to the cast and the writers." - Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times
"Maybe the cast will come together with some Community-level chemistry. Right now, it's just awkward and borderline offensive." - Paige Wiser, Chicago Sun-Times
"One day it might evolve into a sharp, irreverent satire about consumerism and prejudice that isn't demeaning and doesn't punt to cheap jokes about Indian names, Indian accents and Indian food." - Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly
"A cheap, lazy, unfunny mess. Just depressing." - Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
"As you might expect, the results are pretty offensive, but not even for their obvious racial and cultural ignorance. It's the laziness with which every element of the show was assembled that makes Outsourced such an annoying blister of a television series." - Mikey O'Connell, Zap2It
What I Think Now:
This is such a 2010 show. From the entire premise of a company downsizing and moving its jobs to India to its approach to racial jokes, which is somewhere between complete parody of earlier years in sitcom history and the much more awareness (dare I say "woke") vibes of today. So it definitely was a show of a moment in time and would probably be conceived much differently if it was a new show now. The biggest problem with this pilot is there is not real character development happening, they are all types - just Indian versions of types. Aside from the Ben Rappaport character (and even sometimes including his character), the joke for pretty much every other character was that they didn't get something that should seem obvious and was obvious to us as the audience. That's it, that was the joke of the entire pilot. I really think there could have been a show here, it just needed to be entirely reconceived. They needed to have some more respect for their Indian characters and what they could do. A show like this now on a streamer would probably have a much better approach. I think this was the first time I saw Rizwan Manji and he has annoyed me in pretty much everything since. He's actually a little more restrained here, he's been worse in other things.
What Happened to the Show:
Back in 2010, NBC had a Thursday night lineup that was full of critically acclaimed shows that had lots of buzz online but mostly low ratings. The Office was the exception but the others shows on the night - 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation and Community were beloved but low rated shows. Since NBC was in such disarray at the time, these shows all survived for years because at least they had the critical acclaim and fandom. So along came Outsourced, and fans were immediately unhappy that Parks and Rec was going on the bench for this show. Then it was savaged by reviews (45 on Metacritic) and quickly it became clear that it would not be the next Thursday darling. It was not turning into Community. NBC tried for about half a season to make this show work, airing it after The Office. In January, they brought Parks and Recreation back though and Outsourced was moved to 10:30pm, usually a death knell for a comedy because comedies just don't air in the 10pm hour on Broadcast TV and it's never worked when they've tried. Despite some critics saying it got better during its run, it was cancelled after one full season of 22 episodes. I'm pretty sure I only watched the first episode and never checked back in.
Final Episode: May 12, 2011
Episode Count: 22
Where to Watch: Available for Purchase on Amazon, Apple and DVD
I'm excited to be contributing to The TV Ratings Guide! You can read my regular work at Benjamonster's TV!
