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Review: FOX's 'The Mindy Project' & 'Ben and Kate' show comic promise

These are the best new comedies of the fall season

By Alan Sepinwall Monday, Sep 24, 2012 9:08 AM

<p>"The Mindy Project" & "Ben and Kate."</p>

"The Mindy Project" & "Ben and Kate."

Credit: FOX
On last week's phenomenal episode of FX's "Louie," director David Lynch played a veteran talk show producer training Louie for a shot at succeeding David Letterman. At one point, Lynch needs proof that Louie is actually funny, and demands that Louie make him laugh on the count of 3. Louie flinches once, then twice, and Lynch warns him that the next countdown will be the last, and Louie wins a reprieve by bursting into a string of falsetto nonsense that in no way resembles his actual comic style, but pleases Lynch. It's not until later in the episode that Louie finally relaxes and gets the confidence to be as funny on-camera as he knows he can be.
 
There are times when I watch sitcom pilots and feel very much like the Lynch character: I want to laugh, and I want to laugh now, and if you can't make me do that, why am I wasting my time on you? But like Louie in that episode, it's not always so simple. Some new comedies burst onto the scene fully-formed, where their debut episodes are not only incredibly funny, but representative of what the series is going to be long-term. "Arrested Development" was like that; so was "Modern Family." But more often, great comedies come from more humble beginnings. The first season of "Parks and Recreation" was a mess, and now it's one of the best shows on television. The pilot of "The Office" is pretty terrible, and we know what that show became in time.
 
Sometimes, even a good start isn't enough. Look at FOX's "New Girl," one of last season's bigger comedy successes. It debuted with a very funny episode that hung nearly all of the laughs on Zooey Deschanel's quirky persona, then went through the inevitable growing pains of most new shows before finding a balance where the jokes were more evenly, successfully distributed between Deschanel, Max Greenfield and Jake Johnson. As the series returns tomorrow night with new episodes at 8 and 9, it's a confident, funny one that has largely figured itself out (though Lamorne Morris's Winston remains frustratingly tangential).
 
So when I look at "Ben and Kate" and "The Mindy Project" — the two new FOX comedies that are debuting alongside these new "New Girl"s tomorrow at 8:30 and 9:30, respectively — I can't just do some simple arithmetic about how much each pilot made me laugh. (Each did, but only sporadically.) It's a more elaborate calculus about whether these feel like they have the raw material and the voice to become really good.
 
And I think both do.
 
"Ben and Kate" stars Nat Faxon (one of the three Oscar-winning screenwriters of "The Descendants") and Dakota Johnson as the eponymous siblings, who had to raise each other amid their parents' crumbling marriage, and are each other's support system in adult life. Kate grew up too fast as single mom to Maddie (Maggie Jones), while Ben never grew up at all, and randomly parachutes into his sister's life to wreak havoc. When we meet him in the pilot episode, he disrupts her date with a handsome prospect, wearing a hockey mask and explaining, "I was stealing cable from your neighbor. I didn't want her to recognize me."
 
The show's creator, Dana Fox, was a writer on "New Girl" last season, and based the central relationship on the one she has with her own brother Ben. At the Television Critics Association summer press tour, she charmed the assembled reporters with tales of the real-life Ben's misadventures, and there's an obvious warmth and specificity to the way the siblings interact even as they work through familiar sitcom tropes like the wedding that has to be crashed or the boyfriend who isn't quite what he seems. Jones also brings the precocious-yet-natural quality she had in "We Bought a Zoo," creating a sweet, believable, oddball family unit.
 
I instantly liked all three characters. I just didn't find them incredibly funny in this first outing. There are stray laughs here and there — a number of them from Lucy Punch as Kate's inappropriate best friend BJ, who gives her dating advice like "Draw attention to your mouth. Constantly." — but the first episode is more of a pleasant experience that holds the promise of something better down the road.
 
"The Mindy Project" is the more overtly comic pilot. This shouldn't be a surprise, as it was created by and stars Mindy Kaling, who was responsible for several of the most laugh-out-loud "Office" episodes ever (she wrote "The Injury," the one where Michael cooks his foot on a Foreman grill) and was a reliable source of on-camera humor as Kelly Kapoor, the shallow, celebrity-obsessed Dunder Mifflin customer service rep.
 
Here, Kaling is Mindy Lahiri, a young obstetrician who has unfortunately chosen to make most of her life choices based on the unreliable lessons of popular culture.
 
"You have an idea of how your life is going to turn out," Mindy tells us in the series' opening moments, a montage of her growing up in front of the television. "When I was a kid, all I did was watch romantic comedies in my living room while I did my homework. In high school, Tom Hanks was my first boyfriend."
 
As an adult, she has a classic movie-style meet-cute with a handsome dentist (Bill Hader from "SNL," one of several notable pilot guest stars) in a malfunctioning elevator, and she's overcome with the way her life is imitating her favorite kind of art.
 
"No way! It's happening!" she whispers, practically on the verge of a seizure.
 
But life isn't quite like a romantic comedy — even if you're a character on a sitcom yourself, and one who gets thrown into a love triangle involving two other doctors in the practice: English bad boy Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks) and earthy tough guy Danny Castellano (Chris Messina). Sometimes, Mindy sabotages herself. Other times, life gets in the way. And sometimes, the two combine and she winds up riding a stolen bicycle into a swimming pool and having an argument with an underwater Barbie doll.
 
"Your life is not a romantic comedy," her best friend Gwen (Anna Camp) insists. "Right now ,it seems more like a sad documentary about a criminally insane spinster."
 
"It kind of sounds like I could win an Oscar, though," Mindy says, looking on the bright side of things.
 
The idea of a romantic comedy about a woman obsessed with romantic comedies is both clever and one that may be tricky to pull off. Making a character aware of a cliché — say, that Mindy is another female series lead who is a mess in her personal life but great at her job — doesn't automatically make the cliché fresh again.
 
But as with "Ben and Kate," Kaling's voice — usually the most important thing to listen for in any comedy pilot — rings through, and it sounds like she's smart enough to avoid some of the pitfalls. When I interviewed her at press tour, for instance, she said the show is going to very quickly move away from the "Bridget Jones"-style Mindy/Jeremy/Danny triangle and focus more on how Mindy and Danny do and don't get along. That's smart not just because it's unexpected, but because Messina's performance and Kaling's writing make Danny into a character as distinct and funny as Mindy herself.
 
(He's also just as fixated on pop culture in his own way. When she mocks him for getting into a fight at a Bruce Springsteen concert, he takes instant offense and tells her, "First of all, it's 'a Springsteen show,' not 'a Bruce Springsteen concert.' You sound ignorant.")
 
There are a few rough patches — a blind date gone awry scene (with Kaling's old "Office" co-star Ed Helms) pushes Mindy's behavior to the point where she seems unstable rather than just neurotic — but overall, "The Mindy Project" is a comedy that arrives knowing what it wants to be and what kinds of stories and jokes it wants to tell.

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If you're expecting an instant-classic sitcom pilot this fall, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for two rookies with the potential to become great in time, these are your two best bets.
 
NOTE: The code for our grading system doesn't allow for multiple grades on one review, so let's say that I give "Ben and Kate" a B and "The Mindy Project" a B+.
 
Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

 

Alan-sepinwall-sm
Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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  • Default-avatar

    Jimmy D

    I think you forgot to add in your example near the top

    September 24, 2012 at 9:16AM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    srpad

    I watched both of these On Demand already and really wanted to like them but didn't. It doesn't help that Tuesdays have become very crowded for comedies thanks to ABC moving shows I like to that night. As Alan sometimes says, maybe I'll check back in later in the season and see how the shows have grown, if they have.

    September 24, 2012 at 10:10AM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Scout

    Love both. Already set to DVR. I love Mindy. I wasn't expecting to like Ben And Kate, but what a charming show. The voice on both shows seems clear - and very appealing to me. As for Mindy, it's about time that network TV caught to the idea that not all of women are pencil-thin. They can have womanly bodies and be totally hot, fun, smart, of color and carry a show. Go Mindy!!

    September 24, 2012 at 10:25AM EST Reply to Comment
    • Federer_logo_schwarz_p2_talkback_profile

      Brubarian That's why they have Anna Camp. Personally, I couldn't give a damn about sex appeal in shows, but I learned from the Emmy's that my views on television are apparently not on par with the mainstream.

      September 24, 2012 at 11:37AM EST
    • Television

      bitchstolemyremote Re: Brubarian. Emmys aren't reflective of the mainstream. Awards shows are a completely different beast (though Homeland is amazing and totally worthy of being celebrated AND watched)

      September 26, 2012 at 12:10PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Atticus

    Scout = Astroturfing Fox PR intern.

    September 24, 2012 at 10:39AM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Nadir

    Back when I could only get 30 or so working channels and only 5 of them were making original fictional narratives I might have had the patience to sit through a season or 3 of shows figuring themselves out. Now, unless I hear some great reviews, I usually wait until end of season to choose what's worthwhile.

    September 24, 2012 at 12:03PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Batfink_talkback_profile

    chuchundra

    I saw both of these on Hulu already. Neither one really impressed me, but I'll keep them in mu Hulu rotation until I get bored and drop them or get interested enough to watch them in the living room.

    Ben and Kate is cute, but it's light as a feather and I don't have a good feeling about where it might be headed.

    There's some good stuff at the core of The Mindy Project and bringing in Tobo to do some character work is a good way to draw me in but I don't really like Mindy Kaling as the lead. I feel a little crappy saying this, but I don't find her at all attractive and that really inhibits my enjoyment of the show.

    Are you planning to put any of these shows in the review rotation, at least provisionally?

    September 24, 2012 at 12:20PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    John

    "I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon- sue me- and since I don''t have a butler, I have to do it myself. So most nights before I go to bed I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman Grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious. It''s good for me. It's the perfect way to start the day. Today I got up, I stepped onto the grill and it clamped down on my foot. That''s it. I don't see what's so hard to believe about that"

    September 24, 2012 at 12:31PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Gregory Gregson

    I thought Ben and Kate was fine, but that's the kind of show I see aiming a lot more for the warm moments than the laughs, which doesn't do much for me. And while I found Nat Faxon okay, I didn't find his character very promising. He's just goofy in a veeeeery harmless way.

    The only aspect of the show that I liked a LOT was definitely Lucy Punch, who steals every second that she's on scene.

    September 24, 2012 at 12:51PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Television

      bitchstolemyremote She was definitely hilarious. With word that they're considering reviving Rebel Wilson's show, how hilarious would a series around foul-mouthed British girls be?!

      September 26, 2012 at 12:12PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Radiation Man

    The Mindy Project has a surprisingly good writing staff from what i remember hearing. I just hope it's not an example of too many cooks...

    September 24, 2012 at 2:23PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    FranklynStreet

    Really liked Ben and Kate; wanted to like The Mindy Project and was rooting for Mindy Kaling, but the pilot really left me cold and the main character turned me off-- too frivolous, self-obsessed, and unaware, while the show itself was contrarily too meta and self-aware. And I felt really bad for Chris Messina being stuck on this show when he deserves something much better.

    September 24, 2012 at 8:44PM EST Reply to Comment
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    Haik Mendelovich

    I didn't like the Mindy Project pilot - at all.

    Kelly Kapoor gets a medical degree a new name... and is completely unchanged.

    And that's all it is.

    September 25, 2012 at 12:23AM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    jcpdiesel21

    I'm surprised at the criticism of Ben and Kate. I thought it was hilarious and I laughed more during the first five minutes than during the entire pilot of The Mindy Project. Nat Faxon is a standout and the entire cast is funny. I think it'll pair well with Raising Hope.

    I give The Mindy Project a bit more leeway because I like Mindy Kaling, but I was not too impressed. It does have promise, though.

    September 25, 2012 at 10:17AM EST Reply to Comment
  • Television

    bitchstolemyremote

    Preferred Ben & Kate to Mindy. The latter seemed a little too desperate to be both kooky and conventional, though I can also see how people would find Ben annoying enough to say the same about Ben & Kate.

    They're both worth sticking around for a few weeks to determine if they improve/maintain.

    September 26, 2012 at 12:01PM EST Reply to Comment

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