Do you believe that Mindy Lahiri, Mindy Kaling’s daffy obstetrician-gynecologist character on The Mindy Project, would own a “beloved South Park pinball machine”? No, I don’t either, and that throwaway joke is one of the problems with The Mindy Project’s move to Hulu, which will air episodes of the show’s 26-episode fourth season every Tuesday after it was cancelled earlier this year by Fox.
The Mindy Project was always good, but it never really found its footing. It started as a comedy about Mindy at work in the doctor’s office and in her dating life. Then her personal life was pretty much scuttled altogether and it added a coterie of characters into her work life. Then it shifted back again and focused on her relationship with co-worker Danny (Chris Messina). Once he got her pregnant, the show was mostly about Mindy dealing with Danny and his mother Annette (Rhea Perlman).
Now that it’s on Hulu, it seems to be something else. The first episode focuses on Danny’s visit to India to convince Mindy’s parents that he loves her and wants to take care of her, even though he doesn’t believe in marriage. Meanwhile, Mindy has a dream that she is married to a hot producer of the Real Housewives franchise (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and that Danny is dating Freida Pinto. Yes, this season seems like it’s going to be all about Danny, Mindy, their baby, and their respective families, which is good unless, like me, your favorite part was the workplace comedy.
The Mindy Project is still a reliably funny show. When discussing her dream, Mindy says: “It was like It’s a Wonderful Life, but in color and not boring,” which is the perfect line for her character. Not only is it witty and laced with pop culture references, but also erudite, intelligent and slightly frivolous, which is the essence of Mindy’s character. It’s nice to see that the switch hasn’t affected her tone and humor at all.
While there are a few laugh-out-loud moments, the show still exhibits its most persistent problem: sacrificing its characters for throwaway jokes. This brings us back to Mindy and her South Park pinball machine. Now, were it a Dolly Parton pinball machine or a life-sized cutout of Kelly Clarkson, I would believe that she would have one of those in storage, but Mindy never seemed like the kind of person who would exalt Comedy Central’s longest-running program. It’s as if Mindy has no idea who Mindy really is.
She’s not the only character who has this same idiocy problem. When Danny is leaving Mindy’s parents, he says: “See you at Ramadan.” The joke is supposed to be about how Danny doesn’t understand her culture. But how would Danny, a man smart enough to pull himself up from his humble beginnings and become a doctor, not know that Ramadan is a Muslim holiday and that Mindy’s family is not Muslim? Also, if he’s been with Mindy for the better part of a year, wouldn’t he know what religion she was raised with? Is that one joke really enough to make one of the show’s main characters out to be a simpleton? No, it’s not.
The problem here is not with The Mindy Project (which is still enjoyable enough for its devotees) but with this age of television in general. There are so many networks and streaming services clamoring for original content that we’re getting a lot of shows that are just pretty good surviving for longer than they should. The Mindy Project has always struggled with its identity and was trying to change in order to attract viewers. I was hoping that once it headed to Hulu, it wouldn’t have to do that any more and could pick an identity and run with it.
If Mindy Kaling, one of the best comedic minds in the current TV landscape and one we definitely need to hear more from, can’t figure out what to do with this show, maybe it should get canned so she can make another one. Maybe that will be her breakthrough hit, her show that will be sure of itself and really invest in its voice and its vision rather than changing focus like a kid with ADHD in a video arcade. Sadly, that won’t happen in the age of television that we live in. Instead we’re stuck with the same old, same old and pretty good will have to suffice.
