Take me with you

The Mindy Project wrapped up its first season, as Mindy decided to join Casey on the year long mission trip to Haiti  – seemingly solidifying their relationship, but leaving her professional life hanging in the balance. This has been an up and down season with some bright spots, but just not enough character development of laugh-out-loud moments to really satisfy. Given the cast and writers, I came into this show expecting a comedy series with a few meaningful story lines thrown in to make the viewer think every once in a while. On occasion the show did actually address some interesting topics and issues,

Too old for this

 

I thought this was a stronger episode than in recent weeks. As usually is the case with this show, the laughs came from random moments of good writing and/or good comedic delivery rather than from funny plotlines. For example, Mindy’s shower scene exclamation

Triathlon and trying too hard

After a couple of weeks off, The Mindy Project returned in fairly good shape. The team version of the triathlon that this episode features is a pretty good metaphor for the show: different participants/episodes have different strengths, but no one is the full package. Tonight’s episode offers an especially clear example of what I think is a strange problem that plagues this show:

Sunny Santa Fe would be nice

I’m not sure what’s going on with the show’s schedule right now. In last Tuesday’s episode, Mindy met the pastor, and it seemed like she might see him again. On Thursday’s episode (not sure why they stuck one in there), she went to a club alone and went home with a guy she thought was hitting on her. After finding out he was a prostitute, she tried to “pretty man” him. Then in last night’s episode, she appears to be in a semi-serious relationship with the pastor. The opening scene showed them in bed, with Mindy quizzing the pastor about whether he would kill to avenge her murder. In that hypothetical scenario,

I’m going to ‘Pretty Woman’ him

This week we got a double shot of The Mindy Project and this second episode was actually a welcome addition. Once again, the show did a great job of tying together the two storylines and it made for a more coherent and focused episode. Likewise, they returned to some of the strengths of the show from earlier episodes that made this week a lot funnier.

When it comes to prisons, I’m the gynecologist

This week The Mindy Project goes to church… kind of.  More accurately, they superficially touched on the topics of religious differences in dating/relationships and the motivation behind people’s altruism and selflessness. These are rich and complex subjects that entire seasons or even series have been dedicated to exploring, and wisely The Mindy Project didn’t delve in too deeply. This is supposed to be a comedy after all, and these issues could threaten to take the show in a serious, dramatic direction. That being said, if the show is going to give topics a cursory treatment to keep things light and preserve a comedic element it’s important to actually have a funny episode!

Honesty is the best policy

This was another so-so episode of The Mindy Project. I suppose the theme of its two stories is something like “It’s hard to be honest, but honesty makes for better relationships.” Ok, that’s fine, but the message the episode really conveys is “It’s hard to write television comedy.” The first plot concerns Danny’s childhood friend, Stevie, who still lives on Staten Island and wants Danny to continue providing him with Vicodin after stitching him up after a fight. The second plot involves the unexpected return of Heather, Josh’s original girlfriend to whom Mindy was unwittingly the other woman.

An unfulfilled birthday wish

This episode supposedly depicts the birthday of Mindy, a successful young doctor who has numerous friends and mostly nice colleagues. The central force of the whole show is Mindy’s search for love, so we are supposed to believe that she would rather go on a blind date with a guy she met online than spend her birthday with her friends. Seriously? That’s a weird first date, and it suggests that Mindy is feeling a level of desperation for romance that the last episode, featuring a near miss with her childhood sweetheart, didn’t convey. In that story, Mindy initially wants to take semi-drastic measures to keep Sam from returning to Afghanistan,

The one that got away

This episode delivered what the show does well: it used Mindy’s passion for romantic comedies as a frame without making her seem obsessed, it featured a fun guest star (Seth Rogen), it chronicled a mostly believable challenge in Mindy’s dating life–the problem of bad timing, and it showed Mindy getting through the ups-and-downs rather than staying down.

Thank goodness for the return of snappy dialogue and good chemistry between Mindy and a romantic interest.  Mindy Kaling and Seth Rogen

No human has ever scored sad dog numbers before

The Mindy Project was back after a State of the Union hiatus last week, and I fear that President Obama killed a little of the show’s momentum. There were a couple of laughs this week, but for the most part it was a weak episode. They open with Mindy and Danny watching her new taxi-cab public service announcements, where she dresses as Ralph from the Muppets and converses with a sock puppet about women’s health issues.