Outsourced

Outsourced seems to me the most deftly realized sitcom of the new season. It is no closer to reality than any of its Thursday night neighbors ( Ken Kwapis, of "The Office" and other good things, developed it and directed the pilot), but it has a top-flight cast, characters who show you who they are rather than telling you, smart writing, sure rhythms and a cheerful attitude.

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.

Fortunately, Rappaport is a fairly effective Everyman, and the wince-inducing aspects of the premise quickly fade into standard workplace comedy deriving a twist from its location.

Careful viewing reveals that American customs bear the brunt of most of the gentle humor of this series that should fit seamlessly into NBC's goofballs-at-the-office (or in-the-classroom) Thursday-night sitcom block.

Maybe the cast of this sitcom will come together with some "Community"-level chemistry. Right now, it's just awkward and borderline offensive.

While it's possible that the staff is the butt of a few too many of the jokes, the pilot is good-natured enough to stay on this side of the offensive line. That line, however, could easily fray - as could our patience if Outsourced devolves into a two-joke show: silly Indians who don't understand our silly customs. For now, mark it down as a show worth watching. Only time will tell if it's worth the trouble.

It's just a little novelty, much like the plastic body fluids its characters are selling.

Though American tastes are mocked here, too, laughing at your own group doesn't necessarily excuse laughing at others.

The humor is crude and risque and often at the expense of Indian culture. I could have lived without the defecation jokes. To be fair, the writers don't give America a pass.

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. Call us when it gets there.

Not offensive. Just not particularly fresh or compelling. Long-term, "Outsourced" may want to become an Indian cousin of "Community," with diverse off-center people whose eccentricities fuel jokes. That's fine. The question may be whether, in carefully omitting most things that could offend, the show has enough left to endure.

Call me culturally insensitive, but I wasn't nearly as offended by the stereotyping in Outsourced--which is based on a movie of the same name that I've never seen--as I was by the fact that most of the resulting jokes were so lame.

Outsourced really needs to move beyond this sort of broad stupidity because its cast, notably Sacha Dhawan, is actually quite good. [27 Sep 2010, p.56]

[A] cheap, lazy, unfunny mess. Just depressing. Nothing to see here--and hopefully not for long.

Ken Kwapis, who developed Outsourced for TV, had nothing to do with the movie. And in his hands, the film's charm has curdled into caricature. All the Indians are dysfunctional weirdos, incapable of even simple social interactions.

There is no reason Outsourced needs to be bad. Outsourced, however, is bad. It is full of jokes about sacred cows and funny names and how funny certain American things sound when you say them in an Indian accent.

The show treats this central culture clash with a great deal of tentativeness, a quality that never makes for good comedy, yet despite its scaredy-cat caution, Outsourced still manages to be vaguely insulting and condescending.

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 this show was assembled that makes Outsourced such an annoying blister of a television series.

Did you [NBC] get the memo about making fun of other cultures to the point where you bump up against the racism thing? Apparently not. India is a big country. Laughing at their cows and curry--it makes you look as if you've never traveled. (Additional note: Making fun of people is easy and cheap. Write that down.)

This is the central duality of the show: half fish-out-of-water tale about Todd, half underdogs-come-from-behind-to-triumph story about his staff. The problem is that neither plot has a sound foundation. For the first, it's hard to identify with Todd because he's not very likable.

The culture-clash premise drowns in a sewer of offensive caricatures and lame jokes.