Divine intervention

The CBS series “Undercover Boss” rests on the “machina-manning deus” fantasy, wrote Alessandra Stanley in the NYT (4/11). According to her, this idea of gods or rulers mingling with regular (or small!) people to find out “how the other half live by living among them” is as old as humankind and a routine in mythology, literature and film.
The “machina-manning deus,” literally a god operating a machine, is an interesting pun on “deus ex machina,” an also well-worn device used by authors to solve an inextricable problem by a sudden and improbable intervention of a new character or object. Aristotle criticized the use of a deus-ex-machina, because a writer “ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this [incident] happen after that one.”
Thus, Stanley’s critique of “the way each episode ends with a pageant [sic] of seigniorial largesse — a $1,000 gift certificate, a family vacation — instead of a commitment to fair wages and safe working conditions” is not quite in synch with her terminology. The undercover boss is definitely not a deus-ex-machina, who solves a problem in unexpected ways, but rather a character much to Aristotle’s liking. After all, such “small acts of benevolence” (Stanley) are exactly the most probable things for the average boss to say or do.