Mindy must’ve been born with an extra funny bone, because my diet coke is coming out of my nose, yes I’ve mistakenly laughed while drinking, don’t do it, so put the drinks and snacks down, except for the chocolate – Mindy will need it, and don’t miss the fabulous show that is The Mindy Project.
Creator, comedian and star of the show, Mindy Kaling plays the enigmatic, confident and utter romantic Mindy Lahiri, an Ob/Gyn doctor who has grown up watching romantic movies and believes that their fairy-tale endings can, and will happen for her. The show subsequently follows Mindy as she dates her many a shining-knight-in-armour, or at least Mindy’s attempts at making them this, but erm, life isn’t quite as she dreams.
Awkwardly charming and in her 30s, Mindy more than struts her stuff, and though she loves her romantic-comedies, the show challenges their typical tropes through the realism of her relationships. As the seasons grow, so too does Mindy’s journey and vivaciousness – although she could never be described as timid – but the falls also become larger, the jokes funnier, the heartbreaks more real and with it Mindy becomes slightly less idealistic, I did say slightly, right?
Most people try to keep their personal and workplace separate, but not Mindy, her two worlds colliding in hilarity and making it far more complicated than it ever needs to be. Oh, and she’s by far the greatest pick-up artist ever; she knows her meet cutes, great-lines, and seductive ways-ish, but she’s just terrible at keeping her neurotic tendencies hidden.
The rest of the ensemble includes another two Ob/Gyn doctors who are male, single and very good-looking, but not the perfect romantic choices – one is grumpy and a hater of love called Danny Castellano (Chris Messina) – think super pessimistic, the other a British guy; Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks) who’s either whining about…well, everything, or is otherwise hitting on every woman in the city. His number of hook-ups easily justifying a rotating door at the health clinic. Then there’s the well-meaning receptionists – cheerleaders to Mindy, but awful people to take advice from. Next are the nurses…hmm some people are just too weird to describe, and yet the show would be missing a sizeable junk of its humour without them, in particular Morgan Tookers (Ike Barinholtz) – the sidekick to Mindy’s flying jokes. There’s also a healthy rotation of long to short-term doctors, nurses and love interests to cheer on, or laugh alongside.
The Mindy Project is a like an initiation for comedians with a queue of incredible guests from Seth Myers, Stephen Colbert to Seth Rogen and many more. Although they’re in no way essential to the show – that role goes to the brilliant banter between Mindy and Danny. They stab one another, trip and push the other down, and more than anything they’ll kill anyone trying to stop them, or worse, join in their evil fun. Because it’s theirgame of tag, each taking their turn to mark out and destroy the other, and yet they’ll still have each other’s backs when needed. It would be hard to see the show working as well if anyone else had tried to play Danny and Mindy, their chemistry that of a long-married couple who hate each other as much as they hate being apart.
Why should you watch The Mindy Project? For flirting tips, misfit friendships, hopeless romantics and endless laughs.
Creator: Mindy Kaling
Other notable works:
- The Sex Lives of College Girls 2021 –
- Never Have I Ever 2020 –
- The Office 2005-2013
