Fox may have canceled Mindy Kaling’s offbeat sitcom The Mindy Project, but the show is in talks to move to Hulu, probably for two 13-episode seasons, said a source familiar with the negotiations on Thursday afternoon.
The Mindy Project, the source said, is a top performer for Hulu, which relies on partner organizations like NBC, ABC and Fox for content as it builds its own slate of original shows. “All hope is not lost by any stretch of the imagination,” the source said.
The show’s ratings aren’t high but they are steady, and it performs well outside of traditional TV on platforms including Hulu’s subscription service.
The show has also cultivated a passionate fan following, making it a likely candidate for immediate revival in much the same way as Dan Harmon’s quirky show Community, which last season’s was a recipient of an 11th-hour rescue (the NBC sitcom was canceled but found a new home on Yahoo Screen). When news of The Mindy Project’s cancellation broke, the show’s name started trending on Twitter.
The Mindy Project follows an ob-gyn named Mindy Lahiri (played by Kaling, the show’s creator) and the other people who work in her small New York medical practice. It has been praised for portraying an atypical heroine who’s neither a cookie-cutter Strong Female Protagonist nor as polarizing as the characters on Lena Dunham’s HBO comedy Girls.
Kaling’s character is in some measure based on herself, but she has been guarded about how much. (“Mindy Lahiri has kissed, conservatively, 120 men. Mindy Kaling has kissed, generously, 20 men,” she told Entertainment Weekly.) In a March conversation with the Hollywood Reporter, she said her long tenure writing for The Office, where she created a character for herself to play, had prepared her to keep writing and performing on The Mindy Project for a long time.
“I do think there’s more to tell,” she said, “and I think fans would be disappointed not to see more adventures with these characters.”
Hulu and Fox declined to comment for this story.
