Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Life: The Romantic Comedy The Mindy Project doesn't quite follow the script TV by DEAN ROBBINS Dr. Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling) has spent a lifetime looking for the perfect man, but she can't find him. In the pilot for The Mindy Project (Tuesday, 9:30 p.m., Fox), we per- ceive her problem: She sees every- thing through the lens of romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally. It's hard for a self-described "chub- by 31-year-old woman" to live up to the Meg Ryan standard — especially one as narcissistic and hard-hearted as Mindy. You may have guessed that The Mindy Project is no ordinary sitcom. Written by Kaling herself, it dares to give its heroine unlikable qualities. Yet we like her anyway, thanks to the subtle script and Kaling's equally subtle performance. She finds her- self in one Katherine Heigl situation Arssrpvrhqrvvtphyy( to Grow Your Business www.upandcomingweekly.com Mindy may not find the perfect man, but The Mindy Project could well prove to be the perfect sitcom. Emmy Awards Sunday, 7 pm (ABC) I left the TV screen briefly last month to check out a few movies. Remind me never to do that again. The Dark Knight Rises couldn't compete with Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad or Mad Men as an investigation of humanity's dark side. And The Campaign couldn't compete with Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls or 30 Rock for laughs. Let's all bow down before television as the industry celebrates its increas- ingly sophisticated programming. And let's all hope the movie moguls are taking notes. Partners Monday, 8:30 pm (CBS) after another — for example, getting trapped in the elevator with a handsome coworker (Bill Hader) — but somehow never achieves a Heigl-worthy outcome. It's the curse of being a real woman who's bought into Hollywood's unrealistic view of love. Advertising #'# %! This is one of those sitcoms with a script so coarse and obnoxious that you think, "Man, those writers must be jerks." It's about a straight guy (David Krumholtz) in a lifelong friendship with a gay guy (Michael Urie) — the kind of gay guy who's obsessed with musicals, penis jokes, interior decorating and Clay Aiken. Indeed, he has tattooed "Clay Aiken" on his ass, allowing the straight guy to say, "I'm going to kick you in the Aiken!" Is there no other way to use a gay man in a sitcom than to freight him with every locker-room stereotype? Urie has comic talent, but he can't save a script written by a bunch of Aikens. Vegas Tuesday, 10 pm (CBS) Vegas claims to be based on the real story of Ralph Lamb, the sheriff who maintained law and order in the early years of the Las Vegas Strip. But it's hard to see much realism in this new drama, which portrays Lamb (Dennis Quaid) as a John Wayne-style cowboy who can knock out three guys at a time with his bare hands. The pilot combines this Western influence with a mob drama and a police procedural, tossing in showgirl razzle-dazzle for good measure. Sounds kind of fun, doesn't it? It ought to be, but Quaid throws a wet blanket on the proceedings. He strikes manly poses with a perma-scowl, as if taking the nonsensical script seriously. In this telling, Sheriff Lamb's rock-solid integ- rity is more than a match for the gangster (Michael Chiklis) intent on corrupt- ing the Strip. In real life, of course, rock-solid integrity had no place in Vegas. And it's sim- ply laughable in Vegas. qh WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM SEPT. 19-25, 2012 UCW 39