Tag / Mindy Kaling

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Post Mortem – The Sex Lives Of College Girls

Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, The Sex Lives of College Girls premiered on HBO Max in 2021.  Following the lives of four 18-year-old freshmen roommates at the fictional Essex College, the series starred Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Alyah Chanelle Scott, and Reneé Rapp.  Rapp, whose star rose higher than the others, left early in season three.  Following the release of the third season last November, the show was cancelled in March.

While Rapp seems to be focusing on music for the time being, the other three leads should find themselves finding new work relatively easily.  I look forward to seeing what comes next.

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Post Mortem – Never Have I Ever

Created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, Never Have I Ever premiered on Netflix in 2020 during the early months of the pandemic.  While I enjoyed the show, I lost track of it and didn’t realize additional seasons were released until 2022, when I caught up on seasons two and three.  The fourth and final season was released last June.

Loosely based on Kaling’s childhood experiences in the Boston area as the child of Indian immigrants, the show centered around a teen girl trying to balance her life in high school with a more traditional experience at home, with her widowed mother and a grandmother over from the home country.  Series star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan has what it takes to build a sustainable career, so I’ll be interested to see what she has coming out next.

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2019: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2019, it is time to take a look back at the 28 books I read over the past year, an increase of 6 books over last year.  Of those 28, 7 were non-fiction and, of the 21 novels, only 3 were tied to a TV show.  Only one of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, 19 were e-books, and, for the first time, there was 1 audio book.  I read nearly 9,500 pages, my second highest total of all time.

Once again, a majority of the books I read this year were by authors I’ve never read before. The 15 authors that I read for the first this year were:

  • Bill Clinton
  • Charles Willeford
  • Nell Scovell
  • Ernest Cline
  • Katrin Schumann
  • Lindy West
  • Luke Jennings
  • Agatha Christie
  • W. P. Kinsella
  • Aziz Ansari
  • John Gregory Betancourt
  • Julie Gregory
  • Mindy Kaling
  • Anthony Stevens
  • Louis Strauss
  • Dean Wesley Smith
  • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • Nell Zink
  • Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Jeffery Deaver and Karin Slaughter were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2019.

5 of the books I read were released this year, while 5 of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1934.

Finally, the breakdown by month.  My vacation to Hawaii in February and being off in December certainly helped pad its totals a tad bit.

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by jim

Book 22 (of 52) – Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) – Mindy Kaling

In her first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Mindy Kaling recounts her upbringing, college years, moving to New York, and breaking in to Hollywood as a writer and actress on The Office.  She tells her experience with Hollywood’s ups and downs, both personally and professionally, and how she deals with not being the “ideal” picture of beauty.

Kaling’s writing style is reminiscent of her television personality, and that’s not a bad thing.  She has an interesting story and I’m glad that I read it.  She also has a follow-up, which I will try to pick up one of these days.

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NBC Upfronts

NBC announced their new fall schedule yesterday and changes are afoot.  The week gets off to a familiar start with The Voice returning for another round on Mondays, followed by The Brave, a new drama starring Anne Heche which is sure to do well.  Tuesday has an attempt at a comedy hour, with Superstore and The Good Place sandwiched in-between The Voice and Chicago Fire.  Wednesday has 3 returning dramas, starting with The Blacklist.

The network will try to revitalize the Must See TV brand on Thursday, with the revamped Will & Grace leading off the night and this year’s breakout hit This Is Us, before a dramatized version of the Menendez brothers murders.  Blindspot moves to Fridays, where it will lead off the night.

Midseason will bring comedies A.P. Bio, starring Patton Oswalt, and Champions, from executive producer Mindy Kaling.  On the drama side, there is Good Girls, about suburban moms who decide to start robbing banks, Reverie, starring Sarah Shahi as a hostage negotiator, and Rise, from the people behind Parenthood.  Timeless, which was cancelled last week and then not cancelled, will also return at some point.

Cancelled shows include The Blacklist: Redemption, Chicago Justice, Emerald City, Powerless, Trial & Error, Grimm, and The Celebrity Apprentice.

by jim

Post Mortem – The Mindy Project

the-mindy-projectAfter 3 seasons, FOX pulled the plug on The Mindy Project, the Mindy Kaling vehicle that never seemed to know exactly what kind of show it wanted to be.  Numerous cast changes, some as early as after the show’s second episode, plagued the series.  As a result, ratings were never commiserate with the show’s critical acclaim.

Despite being cancelled, the show will live on, having been picked up by Hulu.  While I did enjoy the show, it is not enough of a draw to make me subscribe to Hulu, so I will most likely not see its new incarnation.  I wish Kaling and the rest of the show’s crew the best of luck and nothing but great successes from here on out.

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Midseason Review – Tuesdays

old-tv-set1We continue our look back at my expectations for the fall television season, and today we are focusing on Tuesdays.

7:00

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Following the success of The Avengers, ABC, corporate sibling of Marvel, gets to air the spin-off featuring a team of SHIELD agents tracking down threats across the globe.

What looked to be the hit show of the fall has thus far disappointed.  From a strictly Marvel perspective, the lack of any recognizable characters, beyond Coulson, from the movie universe has been a disappointment.  From a Whedon perspective, the show has lacked any of the heart that previous Mutant Enemy productions have shown.  It may be that this show just has too many corporate masters to appease in order to put on a decent show.  I’ll keep watching, though, in the hopes that it improves.

7:30

Brooklyn Nine-Nine – There hasn’t been a real police workplace comedy since Barney Miller left the air in 1982.  The premiere episode wasn’t bad, but sometimes a little bit of Andy Samberg can go a long way.

The show still struggles occasionally with Andy Samberg overload, but, besides that, it has been a very surprising comedy hit.

8:00

New Girl – This show really found its footing once Zooey Deschanel’s Jess and Jake Johnson’s Nick hooked up towards the end of last season.  The two have incredible chemistry, and keeping them apart really served no purpose.  Now if only they could find a consistent usage for Winston.

With Happy Endings ending, Damon Wayans Jr. was available to return to the role he played in the pilot, at least for the remainder of this season.  Things have been a little uneven this season. Continue reading →

by jim

Post Mortem – The Office

the-officeAfter 9 seasons, The Office called it quits after this past season.  It was well past its prime and was really running on fumes at this point, but it will be missed.  Creator Greg Daniels returned for the final season, but had to work around the movie careers of John Krasinski and Ed Helms, which left the show without Jim and/or Andy for large parts of the season.  Which wasn’t always a bad thing, as the writers obviously had nothing more to say with the Andy character.  By the end, one would cringe any time he appeared on screen.

The finale sent the series off on a good note, with Dwight, having finally become the regional manager, getting married to Angela, Steve Carell, B.J. Novak, and Mindy Kaling returning for the wedding, the documentary series that had been filming for 9 years finally airing, and Jim and Pam getting to leave Dunder-Mifflin behind and move on the bigger and, hopefully, better things.

While the show was nowhere near as good as it had been, it will leave a hole in the fall schedule and NBC will likely miss whatever meager ratings it had been bringing in at the end.

by jim

2012 New Fall Season – Tuesdays

It’s time to take a look at the Tuesday night offerings for this season.

7:00

Raising Hope – The quirky Fox drama returns for its third season with more of the same hilarity.

7:30

Ben and Kate – The premiere episode wasn’t bad, and I was pretty impressed with Dakota Johnson as Kate, but I could feel Nat Faxon’s Ben starting to grate during the first half hour.  I’m not sure how much more of him I am willing to take.

8:00

Go On – Matthew Perry’s latest attempt to escape the shadow of Chandler Bing has aired three episodes already and it isn’t bad.  Perry plays a sports radio host who joins a support group after his wife died.

New Girl – Zooey Deschanel returns in one of last season’s break out comedy hits.  The show got stronger as the season went on and the writers found their footing, and I’m looking forward to its return.

Happy Endings – This went from a late season replacement to one of the most consistently funny comedies on TV last season.  The ensemble group plays well off of each other and the writers bring the funny every week.

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