New Girl; The Mindy Project

Series two, episode two & series one, episode two
We’re growing to love the dysfunctional roommates of ‘New Girl’ – flaws and all – which is a good thing, because Zooey Deschanel’s Jess still walks a very fine line between appealing ingénue and silly filly.

Schmidt’s got the hots for Winston’s basketball pro sister, Nick sees the future and it isn’t pretty, while newly jobless Jess is encouraged by the boys to stop cleaning, cooking and creating felt art and go ‘off the grid’. So she picks up a guy who mistakes her for his internet date and quirky Jess becomes perky ‘Katie’. Entertainment at its lightest and brightest – it’s very la la land, but we say embrace the whimsy.

‘The Mindy Project’, however, is still showing rather than realising its potential. Mindy’s hopelessly romantic, reluctantly soft-hearted, improbably upwardly mobile and slightly slutty ob-gyn doctor is still failing to transform herself into wife material.

There’s the smooth-talking English doctor colleague she’s shagging, a wisecracking doctor colleague she’ll end up shagging, and a host of idiosyncratic sidekicks, but it’s Mindy’s show. Enough political incorrectness and decent one-liners to hold your interest, though the writer-star still teeters on the cusp between endearing over-dramatisation and outright irritation.