When Lee Standish (Ben Koldyke) and Angel Ortiz (Amaury Nolasco) are laid off in the “man-cession” they decide to dress for success. To get hired as pharmaceuticals sales reps that means cross-dressing to play nurse with doctor clients, who are apparently all male.

Hilarity ensues.

These Bosom Buddies have far less chemistry than their 80s counterparts. In part because Lee is married man who has little in common with his friend. While Lee puts himself in his wife’s shoes both literally and figuratively, Angel seems to have been added purely to hit on his attractive co-workers.

The jokes feel as forced as a football player in a dress, literally. Lee mistakenly leaves football on his resume, which he explains away as lingerie football. Of course, the gullible manager buys it because Work It makes no attempt whatsoever to encourage suspension of disbelief. It’s all about the innate absurdity of men pretending to be women, and GLAAD isn’t happy about that.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation placed a full-page ad in media industry publication Daily Variety warning that “By encouraging the audience to laugh at the characters’ attempts at womanhood, the show gives license to similar treatment of transgender women.”

Despite the controversy and little competition from other networks, which aired repeats, the Work It premiere had lower ratings than Man Up!, the cancelled show it replaced. Hoping to avoid the same fate, Amaury Nolasc addressed his Twitter followers. “Trust me, when I say it gets even better. I promise,” he tweeted.

Work It airs (for now) on ABC Tuesday @ 8:30PM EST

UPDATE:
After just two episodes, Work It has been canceled.