Thursday , March 28 2024
Outsourced is still the weak spot on NBC's Thursday nights, but it's gotten pretty funny.

TV Review: Outsourced – “Guess Who’s Coming to Delhi?”

Many critics weren’t instant fans of NBC’s Outsourced when it premiered last fall, and that may be putting it mildly. However, I found it slightly amusing, and worthy of some time to grow. Months later, while it remains the weak point in a very strong night of sitcoms, Outsourced has become pretty darn enjoyable, and I don’t think the racial humor is excessive, as some have accused. Or at least, the offensive stuff isn’t all there is to the show.

Take last night’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Delhi,” for instance. Sure, the cultural insensitivity was still there. Charlie (Diedrich Bader) even got a complaint about it from one of his staff. Jerry (Matt Walsh) arrived in India for the first time to check out the operation, and he completely disrespected customs by kissing women’s hands, taking a bunch of his employees to a bar and buying them shots, and tipping a cow, which landed himself and others in jail. But the characters who did those bad things were looked upon by the others as fools. Jerry spent time behind bars! What better payback is that? It’s not like the show is condoning that sort of behavior.

The nice thing is, now that the series has had time to flesh things out, the characters are getting better defined. Rajiv (Rizwan Manjani) is still a tool who hates Todd (Ben Rappaport), but he also shows signs of compassion now and then, and really wants to marry the woman he loves. Todd himself has begun to embrace the culture around him, respecting traditions and boundaries, once he is aware of them, anyway. Gupta (Parvesh Cheena) is still the workplace idiot, but his efforts to help Charlie for no benefit to himself demonstrates what a big heart he has. I have really started liking these people.

Plus, the humor can be pretty funny. Yes, it was wrong for Charlie to rip arms off a statue of a god after using it as a back scratcher, but it was also fairly humorous. Watching Pinky (Thushari Jayasekera) dance or Ajeet (Guru Singh) barely tolerate Jerry were both pleasures. Gupta realizing that a picture of tourists in front of the Eiffel Tower was taken in Vegas instead of Paris because of the drinks in their hands was also pretty good. These are just a few examples.

If you gave up on Outsourced last fall, give it another try. You might like what you see. Outsourced airs Thursday nights at 10:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

About JeromeWetzelTV

Jerome is the creator and writer of It's All Been Done Radio Hour, a modern scripted live comedy show and podcast in the style of old-timey radio serials, and the founder of the Columbus-based entertainment network, IABDPresents. He is also the Chief Television Critic for Seat42F.com and a long-time contributor for Blogcritics. Plus, he works fiction into his space time. Visit http://iabdpresents.com for more of his work.

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One comment

  1. I’m glad this show was cancelled. In this economy it’s a disgrace that NBC would have a series about sending our jobs to India when so many Americans are out of work and would love their jobs. I just got off the phone with a woman from a call center in India and she told me that to upgrade one flight that leaves in a month and goes from JFK to Helsinki, Finland would cost me $17,000. She refused to let me speak to her manager when I told her I didn’t believe the fair would be that expensive. She insisted it was. I mean, I wasn’t renting the entire plane to myself.

    I’ve found very few of these workers competent. 75% of them have always given me misinformation, or had no idea how to help me. One woman out of India who worked for Dell Computers, didn’t even know where the serial number was located on laptop.

    Most of them sound like robots because they’re trying to fool you into thinking they’re American. And then they’re given false names like “Sally” or “Ellie” or “Andrew”.