CHAMPIONS: What Mindy Kaling did next [Series Preview]

Photo by: NBCUniversal

Nice Girls TV favorite,  The Mindy Project wasn’t even in the ground before creator/star/executive producer Mindy Kaling announced her next project: NBC’s Champions. (Seriously, when Champions was announced, The Mindy Project was still in the midst of filming its final season.) Between wrapping up The Mindy Project, filming two films – A Wrinkle in Time and Ocean’s Eight, bringing Champions to life and giving birth to her first child, it has been a whirlwind 18 months for Kaling (how she even found time to breathe let alone sleep is  beyond me) and now Champions finally makes its television debut tonight. If you’re a fan of The Mindy Project and still having trouble letting go, tuning in to this new comedy may help ease your pain as quite a few familiar players are involved with this show.

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC

Champions marks the third TV comedy for Kaling, who got her big break as a writer/actor and eventually director and executive producer on US version of The Office. Here she serves as creator, executive producer and recurring guest star, which is about Vince, a washed up baseball star who owns a gym called Champions in Brooklyn with his sweet and naive brother Matthew. He is ready to sell the gym when his life gets turned upside down courtesy of his his high school girlfriend, Priya (played by Kaling) showing up with their 15-year-old son Michael, who Vince didn’t even know existed. Actually Priya does more than show up with Michael, she leaves him with Vince and Matthew so that he can attend a prestigious performing arts school that will open up opportunities that their hometown in Cleveland can’t do and get him closer to his Broadway dreams. Vince isn’t exactly earning any gold stars for having his life together so let’s see how well he does with looking after a teenager. Let the fun begin!  P.S. Keep your eyes on young star J.J Totah, who plays Michael because he is utterly charming and delightful in this role, perfecting the balance between theatrical and vulnerable. He is definitely one to watch and already my favorite character on the show, and not just because of all the pop culture references he makes! (My particular fave: “My mother is an angel! You robbed her of her youth and left her for dead, like Fantine in Les Mis, so I had to be raised by the ghoul that she had become!“)

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC

Priya has remnants of Mindy Lahiri and even Kelly Kapoor with her sass and fast talking ways, so it’s easy to assume that Kaling is once again playing the same outspoken and often shallow character that she played in her last two television roles, but make no mistake Priya is a different character. For starters, neither Mindy or Kelly would be caught dead in the frumpy brown mom cardigan that Priya sports in the pilot. She’s also a single mother fiercely devoted to her son and would do anything for him even if it meant sending him away so that he could have better opportunities in life.

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC

As mentioned earlier, if you’re a fan of The Mindy Project this new show isn’t exactly full of strangers. Anders Holm plays yet again another ex to a Kaling character as Vince. Fortune Feimster, who played Colette, plays Champions trainer Ruby. Behind the scenes, the show was co-created by Charlie Grandy whom Kaling also worked with on The Mindy Project and The Office; Matt Warburton and Michael Spiller, who were also part of the team on The Mindy Project, are executive producers on this new show, with Spiller also directing. Being the massive fans of The Mindy Project that we are, we have high hopes for Champions and are looking forward to seeing more.

Champions premieres tonight at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.