If you’re a regular visitor to this site, you’ll know we like The Office, Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live, and 30 Rock. With only a few other exceptions, broadcast television is an incredible waste of time, and like other recreational drugs, should be used only occasionally and sparingly.
Interestingly, life on the corporate food-chain is not unlike a poorly written sitcom. Perhaps that is why so many of them are set in the workplace. Both the workplace and the crappy sitcoms have protagonists, antagonists, and usually some version of the mentally unbalanced. Bad writing and poor acting are part of both as well. Perhaps the only significant difference is that on a sitcom, big problems can neatly be wrapped up in 22 minutes, so there’s time to sell soap and give you a preview to next week’s silliness.
I decided to do some research for this post, so I sat for an evening to watch some sitcoms to make sure I hadn’t misplaced my contempt, and to bring myself up to date on some of the blubber being offered up on TV.
Apparently prime-time comedy is getting worse. It is also apparent that one doesn’t need an abundance of talent to write this stuff, so Wily Manager proudly presents:
Manager in the Middle
Manager in the Middle is an innovative new sitcom from the people who bring you the Wily Manager weekly podcasts. The primary character (yet to be named, pending focus group results) is a smart, but cheeky manager constantly being offset by his sadistic immediate supervisor.
The supervisor, Cruela (played by Jane Lynch) loves to pit one manager off against another believing this “healthy” competition will better help her run her business. Our protagonist is also matrix-managed by a kind, cautious human-resource manager who always knows the right thing to do, but is unwilling to make a decision, and is incredibly conflict-adverse.
Our hero (played by Frankie Muniz (he’s all grown up now)) has four peer managers who all report to Cruella. Rounding out the cast is:
- Vlad: The hard-working, smart, reliable foreigner who is easily pushed around for fear of losing his work visa (played by Fez from That 70s Show)
- Dianne: The single mom who is just trying to make it through the day, but is in constant conflict with Cruela, as she struggles to make it to the daycare on time to pick up her two kids. Cruela would like to fire her for not working insane hours, but unfortunately (for Cruela) the work she does is outstanding.
- Don: The smarmy, but oddly likeable young single guy who doesn’t know near as much as he thinks he does. He also loves to take credit for other people’s work.
- Vera: The jaded, cynical, sharp-tongued middle aged woman who has over ten years until retirement, but can tell you how many days are left in her working career.
Join us in the first episode when Cruela asks her team to stay late to meet a useless last minute request that everyone knows will go nowhere… and hilarity ensues.
Think we could get Fox to air it after Glee?