Category: TV Features

On April 1st, The Mindy Project‘s second season returned to FOX after a mid-season hiatus.

The show centers on obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling), who lives and works at a private practice in Manhattan. Mindy is a complex and real character. She’s confident in her professional abilities as she balances between being a single woman in her 30s trying to maneuver through her love life and her career, but she’s also obsessed with things like The Real Housewives and romantic chick flicks.

Instead of taking cues from some other female-driven television shows where women in leadership have to exude masculinity or coldness, The Mindy Project is a lesson to the contrary. Bubbly and quirky, Mindy can come off as ditzy to some viewers’ eyes, but looking a bit deeper, there’s a lot more to her. Sure, she’s a pop culture aficionado, but she’s also incredibly intelligent and quick-witted.

To pigeonhole Dr. Lahiri as shallow because of her pop culture addiction gives no credit to the character development of the show; not only can a woman of color be in a powerful, high-paying position, but, yes, she can also create celebrity couple nicknames (one of her touted hidden talents). The Mindy Project fully challenges the idea that someone who thoroughly enjoys Keeping Up with the Kardashians must be a daft airhead.

Even though the show features Mindy, it isn’t geared exclusively toward a female demographic. At the practice, Mindy works with the endearing but closed-off Dr. Danny Castellano (Chris Messina) and the English lady-killer Dr. Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks), who had a friends-with-benefits relationship with Mindy early in the first season. Reed has since become managing partner of the practice and, in the process, has begun stress eating.

Another charm of the show is its many guest stars — in the first half of season two, we met Dr. Paul Leotard (James Franco), a smooth-talking, multitasking OB/GYN hired to replace Mindy while she’s in Haiti with her missionary boyfriend — guest-starred by Anders Holm, of Workaholics fame. Other notable non-regulars include Seth Rogen, Chloë Sevigny, Bill Hader, Timothy Olyphant, Jay Duplass, and Kaling’s former Office mates, Ellie Kemper, B.J. Novak, and Ed Helms.

When Dr. Peter Prentice (Adam Pally from the nixed Happy Endings) is hired to replace Franco’s character, he brings a raunchy, bro vibe to the show to contrast Mindy — and it fits. Peter’s single-guy take on dating, girls, and guy stuff adds a dimension to The Mindy Project that makes everyone even more likeable. The situations Mindy and her single coworkers get into, especially as fleeting as dating may be, can be over-the-top and applicable at the same time. Who hasn’t run into their drunk and still-not-totally-over-you ex at a bar? It comes from all angles.

The Mindy Project is a charming comedy for professionals. It’s not quite awkward enough to be compared to The Office, but it has enough character growth to be in the same realm. It was recently renewed for a third season. The Mindy Project is a must-watch in your comedy arsenal.

The Mindy Project

Tuesdays, 8 p.m.

Fox

Carl Sagan kicked off his classic science television series Cosmos by defining the scope of his endeavor: “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”

Writing a book that covers all that ground, much less making good TV out of it, is nearly impossible. But Sagan pulled off both feats in 1980, creating a worldwide phenomenon that sharpened a generation’s interest in science. The 13-part Cosmos was the best-rated show on public television for more than a decade until Ken Burns’ The Civil War topped it, barely. With an estimated half-billion total viewers worldwide, it remains one of the most-watched and most influential shows in the history of the medium.

Sagan was the right guy in the right place at the right time. The Brooklyn-born astrophysicist worked for NASA at the dawn of the space program and was one of the driving forces behind the army of robotic space probes that fanned out across the solar system in the 1960s and ’70s. But he was not one of NASA’s self-styled “steely-eyed missile men,” the former military engineers and aviators who turned their expertise in creating nuclear-tipped rockets toward peaceful ends. Sagan was one of what they called “The Long Hairs” — a professorial type who preferred smoking weed over swigging scotch and who regarded space exploration as something of a mystic vision quest rather than a series of engineering challenges to be overcome.

By 1980, Sagan was the author of a half-dozen classics of popular science writing. Already a minor celebrity, he was appearing regularly with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show to discuss new scientific breakthroughs. He took his position as the de facto public face of science very seriously, and Cosmos‘ scientific rigor and clarity became the standard that all subsequent popular science shows aspired to. But Sagan the mystic, who had grown up on a diet of pulp science fiction, was obsessed with the possibility — he would say inevitability — of extraterrestrial life. Cosmos did not shy away from speculating what forms that life may take, and how we might learn about them. This drew hoots of derision from some of his fellow scientists but proved to be a hit with audiences.

In the ensuing 34 years, Cosmos became the template for documentary television, both great and terrible. Today, cable shows like Ancient Aliens take Sagan’s tone of breathless wonder and cynically use it to peddle ratings-grabbing hokum. Perhaps the anti-Cosmos was the 2001 Fox “documentary” that accused NASA of faking the moon landing, so it is kind of ironic that the same channel would choose to produce a rebooted Cosmos intended to both update the series’ increasingly dated science facts and introduce a new generations to Sagan’s sense of wonder.

Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, hosts the revamped Cosmos.

But it’s not very ironic when you consider that it was Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane who got the series greenlit. MacFarlane has made billions and billions of dollars for Fox, and when Sagan protégé Neil deGrasse Tyson approached him about redoing Cosmos, MacFarlane decided to cash in some of his chips. MacFarlane’s clout apparently buys a lot, including what was claimed to be the biggest premiere in television history: Ten networks, 45 countries, and dozens of languages.

The new series is completely worthy of the hype. Tyson, working with Sagan’s widow and co-writer Ann Druyan, has updated the look, feel, and pacing of the series for 21st-century viewers without sacrificing its spirit. This is no mean feat, considering that Sagan had 90 minutes per episode while Tyson, working on commercial television, has less than half that. But the first two scripts, directed by former Star Trek: The Next Generation producer Brannon Braga, have been models of narrative economy, revamping Sagan’s most successful motifs while discarding some of his more esoteric digressions.

The show’s framing device, the Spaceship of the Imagination that takes the host from the edge of the observable universe to the mutating DNA of a prehistoric polar bear, has transformed from a dandelion seed into something that looks like a variable-geometry guitar pick. Another of Sagan’s great ideas, the Cosmic Calendar, an extended metaphor that helps make sense of the mind-destroying expanse of time by compressing the history of the universe into a single year, where the entirety of human history is contained in the last 14 seconds of December 31st, has lost none of its power in Tyson’s hands.

Tyson lacks the depth of Sagan’s hard science pedigree, but he is a fearless evangelist for the scientific method. His day job is running New York’s Hayden Planetarium, where he made his bones by breaking the news to the non-astronomer peoples of Earth that Pluto is not a planet.

It was reported that a Fox affiliate in Oklahoma had edited out the 15-second mention of evolution in the first episode, but the second episode made the attempted censorship futile. Tyson uses the same rhetorical gambit that worked for Charles Darwin in On the Origin Of Species, starting with the familiar example of animal breeding (artificial selection) to explain the mechanism behind evolution (natural selection).

Comparing the second episodes of the two series highlights the strengths and weaknesses of both. Sagan used a story about medieval Japanese crab fishermen as his example of artificial selection, an artful but willfully obscure choice; Tyson traces the evolutionary history of the dog, something that everyone can relate to emotionally. Sagan devoted an entire segment to telling the full story of life on Earth from biogenesis to the present in what remains the clearest and most compelling explanation of evolution ever set to film. Tyson opts to tell the specific story of the evolution of the eye (which even Darwin said was the biggest hole in his theory) as a way to both educate the audience about the nuts and bolts of natural selection and to preempt a common counter-argument.

We live in a world that is, even more so than Sagan’s 1980, defined by a constant state of technological change, evolving scientific revelations, and the menace of global catastrophe. To make good decisions about our future, we must understand the wonders and perils of science. Tyson does not flinch from the unknowns, throwing down a challenge to young viewers to be the ones who finally decipher science’s greatest mystery: the origin of life itself. But he makes no apology for Cosmos’ mission: to deliver a strong dose of science fact to a country, and a world, in sore need of it.

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Sundays, 8 p.m.

Fox

My ideal sitcom crossover daydream goes something like this: As part of a health-club sting operation, detective Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) from Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine goes undercover to arrest Ilana (Ilana Glazer) and Abbi (Abbi Jacobson), the lovable BFF’s from Comedy Central’s Broad City, for stealing towels and lotion from the spa where Abbi works. Once Peralta hauls the girls down to the station for questioning, an ad-libbed, winner-take-all tickle fight for the future of network TV comedy breaks out. Will Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s genial, generous absurdism save the day, or will Broad City‘s earthy, lewd local color prevail? Or will they combine to create a consistently hilarious best-of-both-worlds hybrid that will alter the course of not just pop-culture history but history itself?

Then I snap out of it and sigh. At least I can praise these two new shows for getting so good at what they’re doing so quickly.

This year’s Golden Globe winner for Best Comedy Series, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is, and will probably always be, the bigger hit. But Samberg, who also won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, is hardly its unquestioned star. Like the other members of Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s gifted, multicultural ensemble, Samberg’s part of a team, and when he’s not in the spotlight he occupies himself by quietly poking fun at numerous cop-show conventions. (In the pilot, he greeted his new boss thusly: “Hi, Captain! Welcome to the murder.”) Eighteen episodes in, the series is still finding new character combinations involving Samberg’s detective Peralta, his uptight partner Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio), strong, silent enforcer Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), hotheaded family man Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews), and ambitious detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero).

Although I enjoy Samberg’s smiling, painful acceptance of every obstacle and humiliation thrown his way, he’s probably the third-strongest cast member. The Brooklyn Nine-Nine season-one co-MVPs are Andre Braugher, who plays precinct Captain Ray Holt, and Chelsea Peretti, who plays Holt’s assistant, Gina.

Casting the serious-minded Braugher as Holt may have seemed like an unconventional move at first, but it is starting to pay off big time. Because the suave, efficacious, whip-smart leader infuses every word with dramatic significance, stock phrases like “multiple homicides” and “excellent work, detectives” are uttered with the same gravitas as nicknames like “Terry Titties” and “Meep-Morp.” If you listen to him long enough, everything Captain Holt says starts to sound like a potential punch line, especially whenever he starts using any overly… long … dramatic … pauses.

Peretti’s nasally, just-woke-up half-whine also adds extra comic beats and bounces to her dialogue. Too often, Gina lurks in the background as the civilian administrator and resident weirdo; she calls herself “The Paris of people” and claims she has eight underwear drawers, “because I’m civilized.” However, episodes in which she plays a key part, like “The Slump” and “48 Hours,” are among the series’ best to date. And luckily, Gina’s street smarts are given the same weight and importance as her quirks; after all, she was the first person in the precinct who (correctly) picked up on Captain Holt’s “gay vibe.”

Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur and colleague Daniel J. Goor are the two creators of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and their new show shares their alma mater’s uncommonly deep respect for its characters’ eccentricities. They’ve also made a few structural changes to the single-camera sitcom format. The fake-documentary interview segments and hidden-camera reaction-shots have been replaced with Arrested Development-style flashbacks that serve as jokey background info or necessary backstories whenever the show slips into police-procedural parody mode.

Interestingly, Parks and Rec star Amy Poehler is one of Broad City‘s executive producers. But Glazer and Jacobson’s comic sensibility isn’t as warm and fuzzy. Broad City is a dirtier, more risqué sitcom, with plenty of frank sex talk, guilt-free drug use, and general wrong-side-of-the-tracks tomfoolery. Yet even though it’s only five episodes into its run, Broad City feels like a more confident and fully formed show that’s just hitting its stride.

That could be because Glazer and Jacobson already figured out the dynamics of their relationship by writing and starring in dozens of YouTube shorts (try “Work” and “Date Night,” then go exploring). As a result, it’s hard to imagine two TV characters who enjoy each other’s company more. Ilana is a loud, gross, liberal-arts college graduate (or dropout); Abbi is her cautious, less confident best friend. Ilana is the physical and confrontational one who swipes many of the show’s best lines; after last week’s episode, “The Lockout,” I’ll never hear the words “sandwich shop” the same way again. And Abbi, who’s always muttering to herself as part of her ongoing struggle with the world, turns out to be a talented physical comedienne; her outdoor parkour session with a clueless trainer was another “Lockout” highlight.

Their codependent relationship is like an East Coast version of the strange platonic friendship between Portlandia‘s Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen. But Broad City’s will-they-or-won’t-they scenario is actually one of its better running jokes: Ilana’s veiled desire to sleep with Abbi feels like a sly dig at the limits of liberal-arts college tolerance.

As critics and subcultural tour guides, Glazer and Jacobson’s experiences as two broke girls in the city is far less cartoonish than Two Broke Girls and far less frightening than Girls. Their abiding interest in New York City’s ever-roiling waves of oddball humanity, which wash up everything from lecherous locksmiths to spectral shipping employees to ne’er-do-well roommates’ boyfriends, give their mundane adventures in the concrete jungle specificity and uplift. Plus, as Ilana’s laconic boyfriend Lincoln, comedian Hannibal Buress is an ideal third wheel. Buress is like a grown-up Oliver Wendell Jones who gave up computer programming once he found out about online porn.

Jacobson’s and Glazer’s girly version of Workaholics (which airs right before it) may not be for everyone. But they are the precocious comic daughters of Poehler, Tina Fey, and Nora Ephron. They’re smart, funny, sexy, and irresponsible, and I love them a lot.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Tuesdays, 8:30 p.m., FOX

Broad City


Wednesdays, 9:30 p.m., Comedy Central

First, the part without spoilers:

For one hour a week, I’m completely engrossed in Showtime’s Homeland. For the other 167 hours I kinda forget about it.

It’s not that the show isn’t good. For two and a half seasons and counting, Homeland has presented an unrealistic, militaristic, borderline xenophobic thrill ride about American spies and the Islamic terrorists they attempt to foil. The star is Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA intelligence officer who wrestles with bipolar disorder while trying to prove her brilliant deductions of where the next attack is coming from and who will be the perpetrator. She thinks the wolf in sheep’s clothing is Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a Marine who was an Iraq war POW before escaping. Carrie thinks Brody was turned by terrorist mastermind Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban). Carrie’s superior, Saul (Mandy Patinkin), doesn’t know what to think. Brody’s wife (Morena Baccarin) and kids (Morgan Saylor, Jackson Pace) don’t know what to think. The first season is a tense bit of gamesmanship but takes a long time to get really rolling. Each episode ends on a cliffhanger to hook you back, but, for me at least, I wasn’t invested enough in the characters to remember to be anxious.

It’s not that the show isn’t superbly acted. Danes has got the “best dramatic actress on TV” thing on lockdown right now. Watching her face, as she cycles through 100 emotions a minute when she goes on and off her bipolar meds, is an amazement. That her character is thematically linked to jazz is almost too rich a metaphor for Danes’ acting. Both she and Lewis have won Emmys for their work. Can’t say I agree with Lewis’ accolades, in light of the competition, though Patinkin is wonderful as a steadying presence on the show, and Rupert Friend is exceptional as fellow CIA agent Peter Quinn.

Now, the part with spoilers through the first two seasons:

Season one ends with a great turn of events. Brody really does try to detonate a bomb, but his attempt fails. But the second season is even better. The series gets its finest moment in the S2 episode “Q&A,” wherein every lie Brody and Carrie have been telling each other is aired. It’s riveting, watching Carrie wear the man down and the relief they both feel when the ordeal is over. The climax of the season, when the CIA is bombed and Brody is blamed for it, is weird. I can’t pin down exactly what happened and why Carrie is so sure he wasn’t involved, except because of their history. It’s not great storytelling.

Now, the part with spoilers of the current season:

Season 3 is the weirdest yet. In hindsight, I very much appreciate the long con of having us fall out of love with Saul and then back in love in a fury when he and Carrie are revealed to be in cahoots. Also in retrospect, Danes’ performance is even better, walking that line between emotional breakdown and pretending to be going through emotional breakdown.

What I don’t like is the lingering anti-Muslim sentiment, most vivid when the new analyst Fara (Nazanin Boniadi) walks into the CIA to a bunch of stares — because she’s wearing a hijab and for no other reason!

Also apparent: Brody’s got to go. Now that Nazir is dead, any tension of having him on the show is dissipated. As for the other members of the Brody family, I really do like them. I would watch a show about angsty teen Dana Brody. But Homeland is not that show. And I don’t like the feeling that Homeland is going down the same road 24 did with Kim Bauer. (The two shows share a gaggle of producers.) Mental health runaways is just another way to say cougar trap.

Last, the part with spoilers from the last episode:

Carrie is pregnant? WTF? Who’s the daddy? Brody? … or Peter Freakin’ QUINN?

Homeland

Sundays, 8 p.m.

Showtime