The Official Work It Drinking Game

The anticipation was totally unique. It wasn’t like the butterflies one gets before a new episode of Breaking Bad. Hell, it wasn’t even akin to the premiere of a show like The Event of Flash Forward, where you’re pretty sure it’s going to be bad but you want to enjoy the trainwreck anyway. Last night’s series premiere of Work It was a television event unlike any other. It’s not often you can so accurately predict THE WORST SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.

My friends and I have been repeating the cringeworthy-est quotes from the trailer for God knows how long. A month? Two months? We also joked about making Work It a weekly event, like how LOST used to be. I don’t think any of us really believed it would happen…but lo and behold Mark called yesterday to make sure we were still going to watch the premiere. Well, yeah, obviously. Thanks for reminding me. I warned him: If we’re going to do this — if we’re going to really make this a weekly event — we need to work out the rules of the Work It drinking game in advance.

We ran out of beer before the first act ended. There were bets placed on how long it would take for the main character to “transform” into a woman (my bet: end of the first act. correct bet: 4 minutes) . It was a raucous 22 minutes filled with beer chugging and yelling at the television and calling out all the hackneyed or sexist or moronic moments…

We were basically chugging and yelling for 22 minutes straight. And, oh, the laughter. This is seriously the worst television show I think I’ve ever seen. It looks like something that came straight out of the ’80s, only it’s so painfully unfunny I can’t even really imagine it being greenlit during that decade, when every joke was dull and unoriginal, when almost 70% of characters in primetime shows were male, and when characters played by the Suzanne Somers (ok, that show aired during the late ’70s and early ’80s but you get the idea), Katy Sagal and Christina Applegate were the norm — and wildly sexist. The show was the best kind of trainwreck, from start to finish, and I really hope it lasts a few more weeks before its inevitable cancelation.

As I stated before, unlike The Event, the terribleness isn’t heightened by the show taking itself too seriously. Work It, I suppose, sees itself as a slapstick comedy with plenty of physical humor, sight gags and sexual/gender jokes to please. Of course it fails on every level. The writing was atrocious, the actors inane (yes, even you Rebecca Mader, Charlotte from LOST), and the humor totally lacking. That Work It exists is enough to shock you. And since they’ve already used up every conceivable joke about men dressing up as women…where the hell can it possibly go from here? I mean, seriously, they used up EVERY POSSIBLE JOKE in those first twenty-two minutes.

I could write about this for several more paragraphs. I won’t. I’ll spare you. Here are the rules (so far) for the Work It drinking game. If it’s still around next week, watch it, play along, and let me know if you think of any new rules.

The Work It Drinking Game.

• Drink whenever you see one of the men dressed in drag
• Drink each time one of the men learns a life lesson about women.
• Drink each time one of the men overcompensates for his masculinity
• Drink for every male/female genitalia reference/joke
• Drink whenever a woman does something stereotypical of women
• Drink whenever a man does something stereotypical of men
• Drink whenever you hear a song emblematic of gay/transgender/drag culture
• Drink whenever the “Puerto Rican” guy’s accent disappears
• Drink any time a sly reference is made to the fact that they are not actually women
• Drink any time one of the “women” fools a man into thinking “she’s” a “woman”.
• Drink whenever you hear the phrase “Work It”
• Drink for every reference to sexual intercourse
• Drink whenever a joke is made and no one watching with you laughs
• Chug your remaining beer PLUS a fresh one if one of the men is found out.

This game is a work in progress. Hopefully by next week we’ll have more rules. If you watched last night and want to suggest a rule, by all means do so. There are plenty more we made up on the spot that I can’t remember now. Hopefully they’ll come to me before next week’s episode (if it airs). In the event that Work It is back at it’s scheduled showtime (8:30pm on ABC next Tuesday, right after the hilarious new Tim Allen vehicle!) I’ll update this page Tuesday with more drinking rules.

Until then? WORK IT!

Valerio Cosi – Grey Horse Theme [MP3]