September 07, 2012

TV: The Mindy Project (Fox, Tue 9:30)

First episode currently available for preview online; premieres September 25.

I don't watch The Office, so I'm not terribly familiar with Mindy Kaling, who stars as Dr. Mindy Lahiri, a gynecologist struggling to balance work and romance. Chris Messina is her obnoxious colleague Danny, who is unusually crude and sexist even by sitcom standards; Ed Weeks is Jeremy, another doctor and occasional romantic interest for Mindy. Not given much to do in the pilot are Anna Camp as the best friend and Stephen Tobolowsky as the boss.

Romantic comedy and sitcom don't mix well here, and Mindy is so professionally irresponsible and unappealingly neurotic that it's hard to work up much sympathy for her in either of the show's two worlds. If they can make her a more appealing character, this show could be a good pairing with New Girl, and it would certainly be nice to have a successful show with a non-white lead character, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

No comments: