PHOTO | COURTESY OF CBS TV

Modern corporate CEOs aren’t the most popular guys in America. While workers face stagnant wages and high unemployment, the Chief Executive Officer is not only guaranteed a fat paycheck, but usually also multi-million dollar bonuses, even if their company is suffering. Given these circumstances, CEOs tend to be the very definition of “out of touch.”

Undercover Boss, a new reality show on CBS, takes a CEO out of his comfort zone and onto the front lines of his company.

Each week, the show follows a different CEO and goes undercover as a new employee in his own company. The other participants are told the camera crew is on hand to film a documentary on entry-level jobs. The result is surprisingly enjoyable and effective.

All the participants seem genuinely changed by the events of the show. The workers share their personal stories of trying to make it on low wages, while the CEO is humbled by their dedication and his own inability to do the same work. The CEO meets good and bad employees. Some are overworked or suffering from poor work environment or personal tragedies.

One early episode featured the head of Hooter’s Restaurant, Coby Brooks. As a male worker, Brooks was not subjected to the same tank top and hot pants outfit as his much younger female coworkers were, but he saw first hand the negative public reaction the Hooter girls deal with, not only from the public but also from a chauvinistic male manager.

Brooks, perhaps a little tone deaf to modern sexual politics, was surprised by the hostile environment created by the manager (who forced his waitresses to participate in degrading food eating contests for his own enjoyment). For the first time, Brooks seemed to question if his restaurant was the type of place he would want his own daughter to work.

At another Hooters location, Brooks was impressed by a female manager who seemed to care about her workers as people first, becoming a surrogate mother to her employees.

Another episode followed David Rife, the owner of White Castle, a fast food chain. Rife found disorganization and low morale, while also realizing that working the drive-thru window was even tougher than it looked.

Fortunately, the worker who trained him for the window was an employee with a heart of gold, straight out of central casting. The worker told Rife he must work long hours in order to provide for his vision-impaired son.

At one of the company’s food processing plants (where the burgers are prepackaged) Rife met a supervisor who seemed to enjoy taking breaks when her employees need her most.

At the end of each episode, the CEO reveals himself to the duped workers, congratulating those who impressed him and rebuking those who disappointed him. The reveal is also used to award those employees who really touched the CEO’s heart, sometimes with cash gifts, scholarships or promotions within the company.

It would be easy to dismiss the show as pure theatrical manipulation. To some degree, it is. Each episode features the good employee who loves his job because it represents the American dream, along with the employee who suffers personal hardship or tragedy.

Featured also is a bad employee who distresses the undercover boss because he/she is rude to customers, hard to work with and generally fails to live up to the corporate code of conduct.

The structured nature of each episode doesn’t mean it is staged, however. The situations never seem contrived or scripted, just carefully selected for maximum impact.

It can be argued however, that the show is thinly veiled public relations. The awards given to the employees with hardships are really very small on the corporate level, much less than a 30 second TV commercial would cost. For only a few thousand dollars (the size of the typical award given on the show), the CEOs buy themselves millions in good PR.

Or maybe it really is just an enjoyable show spotlighting good-hearted corporate bosses. Undercover Boss airs Sunday nights at 8 P.M.

PHOTO | ABC.COM

The days of sitting around the T.V. when the clock strikes seven are long gone.

DVR and Tivo have made sitting down to watch your show, when it comes on, a thing of the past. Now we watch episodes on Hulu or stations’ websites, almost commercial free and on our time. This has created a market that makes it nearly impossible for new shows to thrive in. However, when a gem comes along, you stand up and take notice.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Modern Family.

Modern Family is a new show on ABC this fall. It chronicles three very different families and their everyday lives. The show dovetails off of niche shows like The Office in its faux-documentary style, but brings its own flair with different characters and settings. The Office takes place in one setting, and though it is hilarious for those who work in an office like that, it doesn’t resonate with everyone.

Almost everyone can relate to this show as they know their family or have seen others like the ones featured.

This makes for moments of hilarity that are hard to come by in this watered-down age of comedy shows we live in.

Meet the families

The first is the cradle-robber, which features a husband named Jay, played by Ed O’Neil. O’Neil is best known for his role as Al Bundy from Married with Children and he brings the same anger and sarcasm to this role. He is the older man who married a much younger Latina woman and must try to force a relationship with her younger son.

The second family features Phil and Claire, a regular suburban couple with three young children. Phil likes to think of himself as the cool dad and the man of the house, both of which he constantly proves he is not. His actions constantly get him in hot water with his wife. This family seems to be the most normal of the three and provides a ton of laughs, as they are the most relatable.

The final family consists of two gay men, Mitchell and Cameron, and their baby Lily. This situation brings up some hilarious moments, like in the first episode when they want to take their daughter to baby playtime. Mitchell does not want to look too flamboyant in front of the mothers, so he spends the entire episode stifling his partner Cameron’s colorful nature. They come to find out, the group has another couple of gay men, and the women love their flashy ways.

Critics have raved about this show, and it has begun to create quite the following. It airs on ABC’s Comedy Wednesday at 8 p.m. Some may not deem it worthy of rushing home to catch at its airtime, but it is definitely worthy of a season pass on your Tivo. For those who can’t record it, watch full episodes on ABC.com. The beauty of this show is that it just started, so there’s still time to get caught up on all the hilarity.