The Mindy Project Should Be Shelved

I do love Mindy Kaling. I love her energy and her Tweets. I love her presence on The Office.

And I was really looking forward to her new sitcom, “The Mindy Project,” on NBC.

I don’t see The Mindy Project being long for this world. Also, I think the subject would’ve fared better as a romantic comedy on the big screen than as a sitcom whose characters we want to get involved with every week.

Like those stories about Chelsea Handler (whatever that sitcom was called) and the sitcom about Whitney Cummings, this one is also too self-indulgent and self-centered. In fact, in this one, the title character is kind of a spazzy ditz whom you find a hard time rooting for (which again, would work in a romantic comedy on the big screen, not so much in someone you are going to turn in and watch every week).

The premise of the first episode is that Mindy is someone who bases her life on romantic comedies. But, not surprisingly, isn’t very good at love. She sleeps around pretty freely (again, not something mainstream America wants in a sitcom lead).

Various former members of either SNL or The Office traipse in as potential suitors. And surprise, the guy she’s going to fall in love with is right under her nose, just like any good romantic comedy.

But other than Mindy’s love life, and the fact that she has to take on a lot of patients who don’t have insurance, there’s not much of a plot there.

I took this show out of my TiVo queue after watching the first episode. Sorry, Mindy.

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