Mindy Kaling‘s latest series, Not Suitable For Work, is wrapping its first season on Hulu tomorrow, June 23, with two back-to-back episodes. They are episodes 108 and 109 of the ensemble comedy about 20-somethings in New York navigating first jobs and love.
Why the odd nine-episode season, in-between the standard eight- and 10-episode streaming cycles?
“I had done nine for The Sex Lives of College Girls, we had done an hourlong pilot for comedies, and then doing half hours,” Kaling said during an interview with Deadline tied to the Season 1 finale of NSFW. “It was actually something that I copied from Danny McBride, I think he did it for The Righteous Gemstones, he did an hourlong pilot, and then half-hour shows, and I was like, that is so smart. So, that’s what I did for those two shows.”
All four seasons of McBride’s The Righteous Gemstones consisted of nine episodes. The series launched with an hourlong pilot episode and also went hourlong with the Season 2 premiere and a couple of finales, including the series closer. Sex Lives, which Kaling co-created with Justin Noble, ran for three 10-episode seasons made of half-hour episodes following an hourlong series premiere.
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NSFW: Spicing Up ‘Murray Hill’ Title
Not Suitable For Work is Kaling’s first series as sole creator since the 2012 The Mindy Project, which was developed at NBC and picked up to series at Fox, moving to Hulu after Season 3. When the Warner Bros.-produced ensemble comedy was first sold to Hulu, it was named Murray Hill, after the Manhattan neighborhood where the quintet of young central characters live.
The title was subsequently changed to Not Suitable For Work. It does not quite fit the show as it is not racy and there is virtually no sex in it. There is some office stuff but it is not a workplace show either. Still, audiences seem to be responding to the name as NSFW has been consistently ranking high on Disney+/Hulu’s Daily Top 10 in the U.S., giving the show a decent chance at a Season 2 renewal.
Deadline asked Kaling how she feels about the title change and which one she likes better, Murray Hill or NSFW.
KALING: Well, I remember for backstory that I saw you about a month ago, and you said — and this is, I think, very Nellie Andreeva, if I may say — you were like, I thought your show was really cute, but one thing, I hate your title. I really appreciate your candor, in a world where people never say what they really feel, I thought that was such a funny and again candid thing to say.
The original title of the show is Murray Hill, and one of the big notes that Craig Erwich, who is my boss, but also my old friend from Hulu — he’s the one that saved The Mindy Project and brought it over to Hulu for three more seasons — is that he loved the title, The Sex Lives of College Girls, and he said, listen, I want people to know this is a funny, sexy Mindy Kaling show.
So he asked for a title change, and I gotta say, I have never been someone who’s really prided myself on coming up with good titles for things. I mean, I became the most well-known for show called The Mindy Project, that gives you a window into how uncreative I am about titles. I don’t remember where Not Suitable For Work came in, I want to say it was something Clancy Collins from Warner Brothers had suggested.
I think no one would argue that NSFW has definitely more spice to it than Murray Hill, but I like them all. I’ll also say that some my favorite shows, I look back, and I’m like, the titles just become words, and they kind of, they disappear, they have no meaning. But that’s the evolution of the title.
DEADLINE: Now you have to live up to that title, so should people expect more sex next season?
KALING: What’s funny about my shows is they really reflect a kind of repressed child of immigrants side of me, which is, in Never Have I Ever, it was a character who really wanted to have sex, and she would talk about it all the time, but she really never did, and The Sex Lives Of College Girls, it could be really called The Friendship Life Of College Girls, because all they did was hang out with their friends. There were obviously sexy moments, but it was really about these relationships and their friendships, and I think that about this show too.
There is one or two montages, but when I picture the show, I really picture the roommates talking at their dining tables in their room, so I’m not saying that it’s a bait and switch, but when you say there should be more sex, I’m like, I guess I gotta really put my money where my mouth is and actually deliver on the sexiness of the title next season, should we get another season.
The ‘Friends’ Comparison
Single, good-looking 20-somethings renting two apartments across the hall in a posh Manhattan building who strike friendships and romantic entanglements automatically evoke Friends. With its identical setup, Not Suitable For Work is inevitably triggering Friends comparisons, along with similar criticism the NBC sitcom faced about people in entry-level jobs — or actors auditioning as is the case with Friends‘ Joey and NSFW‘s Kel — being able to afford such expensive lodging.
KALING: I don’t get the criticism that their apartments are unrealistically nice. I get it for other shows but two of our main characters are investment bankers, so I didn’t understand that criticism of the show. Not that I feel like it’s a good use of my time to rebut comments said online or rebut criticisms, but that particular one I think is not good and wrong for anyone who knows investment bankers.
To live in Murray Hill, which is not Tribeca and not Fifth Avenue, with roommates, and to be an investment banker for that square footage of apartment is actually I think pretty realistic.
Listen, I love Friends, I think I’ve seen every episode of Friends, and what I love the most about it is that it understood that timeless thing of your friends become your family. I think our show has a slightly different question, which is, what happens when your friends are also your coworkers, your competitors, and sometimes the people that you’re attracted to, and what I think both shows share — because it’s about people the same age — is that they both reflect this moment where adulthood feels full of possibilities.
I like making TV like that, about hopeful people, places that you want to live, and people that are filled with ambition. I am ambitious, everyone I know is ambitious. I know that Gen Z has this, like a lot of pejorative things are said about them, but it was so hard to beat Gen Z — you had your prom during Covid, or you graduated during Covid, and I feel like there’s a lot of disparaging things said about the generation, but the ones that I know and I’ve worked with work harder than anyone else. They’re all workaholics that want to make up for lost time, and I absolutely love being able to represent them in the show.
Friends’ holiday episodes also informed Not Suitable For Work’s Season 1 finale. Check back Tuesday for Deadline’s postmortem interview with Kaling about the closer and what could be in store for a potential second season.