Tuesday Night Comedy Power Rankings: 'Mindy' Tops a Depleted Field
Tuesday night is huge for television comedy. In order to make sense of all of the options, we've decided to rank the best shows each week to suss out who is coming out on top.
Note: New Girl and the ABC comedies were all on break this week, so the field this week was limited. But there's no reason we can't rank the remaining few.
1. The Mindy Project
Last night's episode of The Mindy Project was only decent by their standards, but considering the weak competition, it takes the top spot this week.
After the messy fallout with Danny, Mindy started "An Officer and a Gynecologist" by swearing off men and cleansing her apartment of any artifacts from past relationships. This ends up complicated, of course, when she tries to take a contraception-deprived girl under her wing and ends up adopting the college student for a week. Oh, the girl is also the daughter of a curmudgeonly and possibly sexist police officer, who gives Mindy a ticket for "public female hysteria" because that law is still on the books (and who she asks out at the end of the episode anyway, because of course). There was also a joke about Rick Santorum, so. Does that sound boring? Because it kind of was, honestly.
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The B-plot of the night had Danny (whose "cranky old man character" makes him a subway hero) pretending to be Jewish to score new patients. Again, not gripping.
Considering the biggest character development we got last night was learning that Peter isn't circumcised, Mindy wasn't a great leap forward – but it wins the week because of the last few minutes, when it pivoted toward a Mindy/Danny rekindling after toying with our hearts with their previous short-lived fling. We all know a rebound is coming, so good for Mindy for not delaying the inevitable. Bonus, there was a You've Got Mail shout out: anyone else notice the bar behind Mindy at the very end was "Kathleen Kelly's"?
2. Growing Up Fisher
Fisher wasn't the worst show last night! It's weird to say it was the second best new comedy on network television last night, but this is the reality of pre-sweeps scheduling. "Desk/Job" was a fairly standard episode, but without one of the terrible "Mel is blind!" gags the show is so often prone to unleash. Instead it had pleasant, if only a bit mundane, plots focusing on Mel teaching Henry how to get his groove back after a blow to his ego, and Joyce and Katie pumped each other up with some girl power. (Good for Katie for dumping that goon of a boyfriend). Fisher can actually be tolerable when it sticks to father/son and mother/daughter sitcom bonding, rather than falling back on cringe-worthy pratfalls. Plus, D.C. Pierson showed up at the end. He deserves better than bit guest spots on mediocre sitcoms.
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3. About a Boy
"About a Kiss" was probably the most uncomfortable episode of About a Boy yet. There was the really weird running joke about everyone checking out Fiona's boobs (we don't know what happened with this show but someone needs to apologize to Minnie Driver) and Marcus got his first kiss. But as awkward as all first kisses can be, this show took it to another level. Question: Why, at 11 years old, does Marcus need a babysitter? As hyper-precocious as the kid is, surely he can watch himself for an evening? OK, so Fiona dropped him off at a random woman's house, who then effectively disappeared, leaving Marcus with her three daughters, two of which are tween versions of Cinderella's step-sisters. The third is the girl version of Marcus (idiotic beanie and all!), and of course this is who he ends up kissing. Will we ever see girl-Marcus again? We hope not, considering one Marcus is already too much to handle most episodes. The episode also flirted with the inevitable Will/Fiona hook-up (a theme last night, apparently), which unlike Mindy, we are not looking forward to.
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This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/04/tuesday-night-comedy-power-rankings-mindy-tops-a-weak-field/361107/
