Mindy Kaling, who wrote and stars in The Mindy Project (Mondays, 9.30pm, Four) likes romantic comedies. So does her alter ego, Dr Mindy Lahiri. Both Mindys - real and fictional - appear to like them in earnest. Everything from When Harry Met Sally and You've Got Mail to the kind of embarrassing films about warring brides and wannabe bridesmaids, the likes of which Katherine Heigl stars in.
Does this mean viewers need to like rom-coms to appreciate The Mindy Project? After watching the pilot, it's hard to tell. Kaling seems to both celebrate and skewer them, which is confusing, particularly after she told the The New Yorker that admitting you like such films "is essentially an admission of mild stupidity".
I love The Bachelor, which is 10 times worse, but if someone suggested I spend Saturday night watching Kate Hudson throw her high heels at some forgettable douche, I would probably respond by making a kidney and icecream pie and swallowing it whole.
The rom-com lead is usually a smart female figure reduced to humiliation by her desperation for a man. In this case, Kaling plays an obstetrician/gynaecologist putting up with the advances of two conceited male colleagues, one of whom tells her, Bridget Jones-style, she should lose weight.
Not until about a quarter of the way in did I wonder if The Mindy Project was meant to be satire.