''Work It'' is an American television

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

that aired on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

from January 3 to January 10, 2012. Set in

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

, the series is about two men who must dress as women in order to keep a job in a bad economy. The series had received overwhelmingly negative reviews. The series premiere was watched by an American audience of 6.16 million. Ratings dropped to 4.9 million viewers in the second episode, and the series was cancelled by ABC on January 13, 2012, after two episodes aired, following another attempt at a "man-cession" comedy called ''

Man Up! ''Man Up!'' is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from October 18 to December 6, 2011. On December 8, ABC announced the series had been cancelled due to low ratings. Only 8 episodes were aired on television, though all 13 episodes were availa ...

'', which failed earlier in the season.

Cast

* Ben Koldyke as Lee Standish *

Amaury Nolasco Amaury Nolasco Garrido (born December 24, 1970) is a Puerto Rican actor. He is best known for the role of Fernando Sucre on the Fox television series ''Prison Break'' (2005–2008, 2017), and for his role in ''Transformers'' (2007). Early li ...

as Angel Ortiz * Beth Lacke as Connie Standish * John Caparulo as Brian *

Rebecca Mader Rebecca Leigh Mader (born 24 April 1977) is an English actress, best known for her roles as Charlotte Lewis in the ABC series '' Lost'', and as Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, on ABC's '' Once Upon a Time''. Life and career Mader was ...

as Grace Hudson *

Rochelle Aytes Rochelle Aytes (born May 17, 1976) is an American actress and model. She is best known for her role as April Malloy on American Broadcasting Company, ABC drama series ''Mistresses (U.S. TV series), Mistresses'' (2013–16) and as the voice of Lef ...

as Vanessa Warner * Kate Reinders as Kelly * Kirstin Eggers as Kristin * Hannah Sullivan as Kat Standish In the unaired pilot, Kacie Lynch played the role of Kat before she was replaced by Hannah Sullivan.

Episodes

Reception

Critical reception

Reception for the series was very negative; it was largely panned by critics and viewers alike.

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

gave it a score of 19/100 (overwhelming dislike) based on 22 reviews. Matt Fowler of ''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

'' gave the pilot episode a score of "0", a rating which ''IGN'' had not used since ''

Olympic Hockey '98 ''Olympic Hockey '98'' is an ice hockey game for the Nintendo 64 that was released in 1998. It is a re-release of '' Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey '98'', but this time not endorsed by Wayne Gretzky and featuring the license for the 1998 Winter Olympi ...

'' (according to Fowler). Robert Bianco of ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

'' also did not give it an enthusiastic review, calling it "witless, tasteless, poorly acted, abominably written, clumsily directed, hideously lit and badly costumed". He gave it a grade of one star out of four. The ''

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving Greater Pittsburgh, metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the fi ...

'' reviewer compared the show unfavorably to '' Bosom Buddies'', which had a similar premise. Emily VanDerWerff of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...

'' gave the pilot an F grade, stating, "Let's just get this out of the way first: ''Work It'' is awful. The grade should indicate that. But it's ''fascinatingly'' awful, in that way where you wonder how the hell something like this got on TV in the year 2012." Alan Pergament, formerly of ''

The Buffalo News ''The Buffalo News'' is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. On January 29, 2020, th ...

'', expressed surprise that the show even made it to air, stating "I do recall I couldn't get those 22 minutes of my life back. It was so unfunny and forced that I suspected it would never air."

Controversy

LGBTQ advocacy groups expressed concerns about ''Work It'', saying that it trivializes the obstacles faced by

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

people in the workplace. Groups that expressed concern include

Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for L ...

, the

Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center The Los Angeles LGBT Center (previously known as the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center) is a provider of programs and services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The organization's work spans four categories, including health, so ...

's Transgender Economic Empowerment Program and the

Transgender Law Center The Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest American transgender-led civil rights organization in the United States. They were originally California's first "fully staffed, state-wide transgender legal organization" and were initially a fisca ...

. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation released a statement that, while acknowledging that the series pilot "does not explicitly address transgender people", still concluded that " ring a period in which the transgender community now routinely finds itself in the cultural crosshairs, the timing couldn’t be worse for a show based on the notion that men dressed as women is inherently funny." Frequently cited is the print advertisement for the series, which features two men dressed as women standing at men's room urinals. The pilot was criticized and protests took place at the network offices for a line of dialogue delivered by Amaury Nolasco's character Angel, who claimed that as a Puerto Rican he would "be great at selling drugs".

Ratings

The pilot episode scored a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating and 6.160 million viewers. The second and last episode saw a 25% drop in the adults 18-49 demo, scoring only a 1.5.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 1826951, Work It
Trailer on ABC's official YouTune channel
2010s American multi-camera sitcoms 2010s American workplace comedy television series 2012 American television series debuts 2012 American television series endings Cross-dressing in television American English-language television shows Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios Television shows set in St. Louis LGBTQ-related controversies in television American Broadcasting Company sitcoms