NBC's I Feel Bad is a fresh idea about an Indian-American family that's been needled half to death

Vanity Fair

The NBC comedy revolves around an Indian-American mom named Emet, played By Sarayu Blue. Sonia Soraiya says it's great to see Indian-American representation onscreen, but watching this show makes her feel bad. "The sloppy and overfull pilot is what happens when a boardroom and a PowerPoint come together to make a television show," she says. "Emet is the daughter of immigrants, but she’s neutralized her otherness through immersion into the cult of American female domesticity; her problem, we’re told, is that she’s too giving. And as maddening as this mom-pandering is, it’s probably the only way this show could be sold. What’s especially, painfully obvious, like a brick to the face, is how the show tries to ignore, or at least smooth over, the alienation Emet must feel. Emet’s only character trait, amidst the hastily sketched mom-and-wife tropes, is that she is Indian-American. But the commonplace agonies of immigrant life have been spun into tepid sitcom banter so unconvincingly upbeat that the grins seem to stifle screams."