Outsourced and My Frustration

So there I was watching Outsourced last night and you know what, I wasn't amused.  I know I haven't written one of these columns for a while and I could delve into the funny (though slightly sloppy technically) 30 Rock live episode, but I'm not doing that, I'm doing Outsourced.

Now, I wasn't amused because Outsourced wasn't funny.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't funny, not in the slightest, but that's not why I wasn't amused.   I wasn't amused because the impetus for the plot was ridiculous (yes, more ridiculous than the rest of the series).

If you don't know the show, it follows the adventures of Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport) as he goes about his newfound life as the manager of a call center in India.  It's not a life that Todd would have chosen for himself but rather one that was thrust upon him when his company outsourced the call center and he needed to keep his paycheck.  I'm not sure where the jokes are supposed to come from so I won't get into that (yet), but the episodes so far have all followed a pretty standard formula where the cultures clash. 

We are to believe at this point that Todd has been working at the call center for at least a few weeks, if not longer, and has become chummy with some of his employees.  Last night, one of them, Asha (Rebecca Hazelwood), was convinced by the assistant manager, Rajiv (Rizwan Manji), to lie to get Todd out of the office.  Rajiv, we learned as the episode progressed, wanted Todd out of the way so that he could pretend to be the manager in front of his would-be father-in-law.

The entire idea falls down because with what we know of the characters before last night there is no way that had he known about Rajiv's wanting to pretend to be manager in advance, Todd wouldn't have gone along with it.  Plus, there's no way that Asha wouldn't have known that Todd would absolutely have agreed.  Which is all to say that Asha's internal motivation for lying was neither explored nor explained, we were just left to accept it and watch the plot progress.

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

Visit Josh Lasser's author page — Josh Lasser's Blog