Not Suitable for Work Review: Mindy Kaling’s Newest Sitcom is Flawed but Fun

Once you get past the deliberate double entendre of the title, Not Suitable for Work actually follows a fairly standard set-up for a sitcom: five twenty-somethings trying to make it in “The Big City,” in this case the classic New York. You’ve seen it in Friends, Sex and the City, New Girl; the list goes on. But a used premise does not mean a bad premise, and I, for one, always love a good sitcom, so does this one deliver the goods?

Well, yes and no. It’s got a great main cast as well as memorable side characters, and each episode manages to deliver on laughs to at least some degree. But it suffers from the “too short” problem of many sitcoms made for streaming, and there were definitely story elements that rubbed me the wrong way. So, what exactly happened here? Let’s discuss.

What is Not Suitable for Work about?

Credit: Disney/Gwen Capistran

Like I said up top, our story focuses on a group of five twenty-somethings attempting to achieve professional success while living in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City. AJ and Davis, two investment bankers working at the same firm played by Ella Hunt and Will Angus respectively, Abby, an up-and-coming stylist played by Avantika, Josh, a TV news PA played by Jack Martin, and Kel, a med student with acting dreams played by Nicholas Duvernay. The three guys all live in an apartment together across the hall from the two girls. Hijinks ensue, as they tend to do.

Not Suitable for Work Review

Credit: Disney/Gwen Capistran

Not Suitable for Work is the latest collaboration between Mindy Kaling and her longtime producing partner Charlie Grandy, having previously worked together on The Mindy Project and The Sex Lives of College Girls, among others. I say this because the show feels like a concerted effort to combine the “Big City Living” angle of the former with the relationship drama of the latter. When it’s not playing out classic sitcom plots, it’s weaving its way through a tangled web of “Who likes whom?” “Who’s currently dating whom?” “Who recently broke up?” and so on and so forth.

I’ve become surprisingly suckered into these types of stories recently, but the problem I found here is that watching these five people navigate their relationships with each other just had a little too much “Come on, what are you doing?” and not enough “Finally!” if that makes any sense. A good romance story needs those moments of frustration to build conflict, of course, but without the catharsis of the “Finally!” moment, it loses the fun factor. This is not helped by scenes that are clearly supposed to offer that catharsis, but just feel like the characters are making stupid mistakes.

Credit: Disney/Gwen Capistran

For example, without giving too much away, AJ spends most of the season dating a guy who constantly belittles her and others and is very clearly depicted as a massive jerk, a viewpoint that the show ultimately ends up agreeing with me on. But it spends so long trying to convince the audience that they should be together and that he’s actually really sweet underneath it all, and he very obviously isn’t. While both Ella Hunt and the actor playing the guy are putting in good work, it starts to become tedious after a while because the conclusion is staring everyone in the face the whole time.

In fact, a lot of the romance subplots in this show boil down to men either being completely inconsiderate jerks and the female leads having their hearts broken, or men being blind to what’s right in front of them and getting their hearts broken. With one or two exceptions, the romance in this show is frustrating, aggressively straight, and has been done to death in countless other shows and movies.

Credit: Disney/Gwen Capistran

Thankfully, Not Suitable for Work isn’t just a romance story; it’s a sitcom. And when it leans into being a sitcom, it’s a lot of fun. The main cast all have very well-rounded personalities with compelling dynamics between them, buoyed by an excellent supporting cast. Highlights include Constance Wu as Vanessa’s uptight boss with arguably more Miranda Priestley energy than Miranda herself in Devil Wears Prada 2, Victor Garber and Judy Gold as a gay news anchor and his lesbian producing partner, and May Hong as AJ and Davis’ coworker giving the same lovably deadpan energy she gave as the voice of Mira in KPop Demon Hunters.

And unlike a romance story, when a sitcom pulls out a tried-and-true trope, good times are virtually guaranteed to be had. Roommate troubles, work crises, unexpected visitors, there’s so many classic sitcom stories that I’m surprised they didn’t throw in a “two dates on the same night” for good measure. The material is funny, the actors sell it; the only issue is that at only nine episodes, the series doesn’t have the kind of breathing room to let the main characters be or flesh out much of the side cast. It feels like a great 22-epiode a season network show trapped in a good enough 8-10 episode prestige streaming format.

Is Not Suitable for Work worth watching?

Credit: Disney/Gwen Capistran

While the romance half of Not Suitable for Work didn’t really land with me, the sitcom half very much did. The characters are compelling, the storylines are memorable, and it’s genuinely very funny. And for as frustrated as I often was with the romantic elements, they do seem to be headed in the right place for a potential second season. I could see this improving over a multi-season run, and I hope it gets there, but for now, this sits firmly in good but not great territory.

Not Suitable for Work premieres on Hulu June 2. All nine episodes were reviewed.

Not Suitable for Work Review: Mindy Kaling’s Newest Sitcom is Flawed but Fun