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Undercover Boss is a television series on CBS produced by Studio Lambert. It is based on the 2009 British Channel 4 series of the same name.[1]
Each episode of the show features a senior executive at a major corporation, working incognito as a new entry-level hire in his or her company for one week, to find out how the company really works (including the impact of "corporate policy") and identify some of the unsung heroes among the employees.
The first episode premiered on February 7, 2010 after Super Bowl XLIV and featured Larry O'Donnell, President and Chief Operating Officer of Waste Management, Inc.[2]
On March 9, 2010, Undercover Boss was renewed for a second season. [3]
Each episode features a high-ranking executive or the owner of a corporation going undercover as an entry-level employee in his own company. The executive alters his appearance and assumes an alias and fictional backstory. The fictitious explanation for the accompanying camera crew is that the executive is being filmed as part of a documentary about workers in a particular industry. The "undercover boss" then tries to do the same work that the actual employees do, experiences what they experience on the job, and talks with people to learn more about them.
At the end of the show, the boss reveals his identity and talks about what he has learned about the business, and ways to improve it for both the workers and the company. The boss also presents several of the employees that he met during the week undercover with varying rewards including job promotions and vacations.
CBS's premiere of Undercover Boss on February 7, 2010, immediately following the network's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, delivered 38.6 million viewers, meaning it had the largest audience ever for a new series following the Super Bowl since the advent of people meters in 1987, the largest audience ever to watch the premiere episode of a reality series, the most watched new series premiere overall on television since Dolly on September 27, 1987 (39.47m), and the third largest post-Super Bowl audience behind Friends Special on January 28, 1996 and Survivor: The Australian Outback on January 28, 2001.[9]
Undercover Boss received mixed reviews; most held good words for the opening episode but criticized many elements of the show's format. The New York Daily News praised the concept as "simple and brilliant" and "an hour of feel-good television for underappreciated workers."[10] Reviewers with the Chicago Sun-Times,[11]The Baltimore Sun,[12] and The New York Times complimented the opening episode, although the latter had reservations on Waste Management CEO Lawrence O’Donnell III's plan to create a task force to address the problems he found: "Larry’s plans to reform his company and humanize the workplace seem great, until he starts to order up committees to study what he has learned. So many good intentions have gone to die in task forces, off-site meetings and mentoring programs."[13] "The show is a welcome change from reality concepts based on humiliating people," concluded The Wall Street Journal.[14]
The Washington Post, in a severely negative review, said that Undercover Boss "is a hollow catharsis for a nation already strung out on the futility of resenting those who occupy CEO suites."[15] It also took aim at the show's ending:
Entertainment Weekly initially panned it, calling the first episode a "CBS-organized publicity stunt" and "a recruiting tool for a worker uprising,"[16] but said a week later that it was "irresistible."[17] The Los Angeles Times believed that it was deriving its idea from Fox's Secret Millionaire (also created by Stephen Lambert) and that it was 'cooked' for TV, with the low-level workers being hand-picked, but conceded that the show is "undeniably touching".[18]
Arianna Huffington asked whether Undercover Boss was the most subversive show on television? "Watching the show," she wrote, "-- including the episode in which the CEO of a waste management company vacuumed out port-a-potties and learned that one of his employees, a woman who drives a garbage truck, has to urinate in a cup because her productivity requirements leave her no time for a bathroom break -- I thought of Benjamin Disraeli. Before becoming Prime Minister of England, [sic] Disraeli wanted to issue a wake up call about the horrible state of the British working class. So, in 1845, he wrote a novel, Sybil, which warned of the danger of England disintegrating into "two nations between whom there is no sympathy, as if they were inhabitants of different planets." The book became a sensation, and the outrage it provoked propelled fundamental social reforms. In the 19th century, one of the most effective ways to convey the quiet desperation of the working class to a wide audience was via a realistic novel. In 2010, it's through reality TV. And Undercover Boss has clearly touched a nerve with viewers. Last week, only the Olympics and American Idol scored higher in the ratings."[19]
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