3rd season to have at least 15 new episodes.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Mindy Kaling’s “The Mindy Project” closed out its second season on Tuesday night, drawing in an audience of nearly 2.5 million US viewers who tuned in to see whether or not the show’s central character would finally resolve her never-ending romantic problems.
The hit Fox TV sitcom has been renewed for a third season, which will comprise of at least 15 all-new episodes, and is set to begin airing towards the end of the year.
“The Mindy Project” has turned into a sizable success for the television network, becoming a staple of its weekly sitcom lineup – not bad for a show that many thought was a considerable gamble, especially because it’s the first network TV show in US history to center on an Indian-origin character.
Spoiler alert: in the second season finale of “The Mindy Project,” Mindy and Danny – the co-worker and male best friend that everyone knows will end up together, despite the characters doing everything in their power to make sure that doesn’t happen – do end up together, after a melodramatic, cliched meeting atop the Empire State Building that plays beautifully into the show’s obsession with the romantic comedies that Kaling grew up with as a child of the 1980s and 1990s.
Next season, presumably, will be about Mindy and Danny navigating their new relationship, and trying to figure out whether or not they really are meant to be. Based on how much the show has enjoyed subverting the genre stereotypes of the very same rom-coms it loves to pay homage to, don’t expect these two to stay together very long; Mindy is nothing if she’s not fickle, indecisive, and scatterbrained when it comes to her relationships.
In an interview with Vulture, Kaling said that the relationship between her and Danny has a lot more “fertile” comedic ground left to offer, assuaging fears that fans have voiced over the last few days regarding where the show could possibly go now that it’s fate-bound couple are, finally, a couple. Kaling – one of the sharpest writers in the business, who penned some of the funniest episodes of NBC’s “The Office” – knows what she’s doing.
“We are just starting to break stories for next season, but last season, we found that the funniest things to pitch on were stories of Danny and Mindy dating. Two people together, against their better judgment, is a really fertile comedy area,” Kaling said.
A premiere date for season three has not yet been announced, but expect the next 15 episodes to have guest stars, awkward situations, and plenty of romantic stumblings.
Episodes of “The Mindy Project” can be viewed here.