No thread on this, huh? I hadn’t really heard of it either, but it’s a delightful show by Mindy Kaling. The lead actress isn’t an amazing actor, but she’s very charismatic and has her moments. The writing is very snappy and I could definitely hear Kaling’s voice.
The show has two complete seasons available (10 episodes each) and a third on the way.
Yeah, this is a really fun show.
It’s very fun but the main character is continuously a shitty person and so my wife axed it from our rotation. I don’t know if I liked it enough to watch it on my own.
But a lot of it was good. And maybe her being a shitty person is just playing the character true.
Started watching it a month or so ago, and got about 5 episodes in and really liked it so far. Need to get back to it.
Can someone explain the name of the show without spoilers?
It’s really just a way to have cute names for each episode. Through the end of season 1 the title definitely doesn’t have any relevance to the plotlines, other than it’s a game that teens sometimes play (but haven’t on the show).
Never Have I Ever is basically a Truth or Dare game but only Truth. A bunch of kids get together and someone says “Never have I ever…” and then adds something potentially embarrassing or whatever. So maybe it’s “Never have I ever had sex in a public bathroom,” and the other participants raise their hand if they HAVE done that thing.
I guess it’s gamification of being vulnerable and sharing personal experiences, though there aren’t points or prizes or anything.
The few times I played that game, the prizes were people that approached you later to help correct your never have I evers.
We always made people drink rather than just raise their hands, but that was college…
Thank you for this detailed explanation.
I’m a bit surprised to hear that it’s not yet relevant to the plotlines on the show.
The names of the episodes are in that format and the title cards reflect that
Never Have I Ever … Gotten Drunk With The Popular Kids
Never Have I Ever … Started a Nuclear War
etc
Well, the titles are relevant to the plotlines. I think you could definitely imagine a slightly older Devi playing the game with her friends and admitting to the things that happen in each episode, which the titles reflect.
Just started watching this and it looks fun but I I’ll see if I get tired of Devi’s supposed shittiness or if it can be forgiven because, hey, she’s 15. I watched almost all of The Mindy Project as it aired (I fell off it the last season or so) so it may not be too bad.
I watched and enjoyed the first season. But I never went beyond that, because the end of that season it goes from “nerdy teen struggles with relatable things revolving around not being in the popular group” to the trope of “nerdy teen ends up in love triangle not only with fellow nerd (who is super wealthy!) but also with hawt person from the popular group.” Which, while a super-common wish fulfillment trope in teen media, just didn’t feel compelling to grown-ass me.
The shittiness was dealt with in a decent way and yeah it makes sense for someone who is 15.
I just finished watching that first season and it was a delight. The young actress playing Devi really pulls it off (well, all the cast, really). We’ll see how the second season goes.
Having finished the other two seasons, I can say it’s a great ride and keeps up the charm big time, and has really touching moments, with a lot of emotional growth for Devi. I’m really looking forward to the fourth season, which I suppose is going to cover her senior year.
If i had any criticism of the series it’s that most of the main “kids” in the story are a bit too emotionally intelligent for their purported ages, leading to reconciliations after fights/arguments/embarrassments/betrayals that happen much sooner and more easily than they would in real life among high school kids. The other thing is that the dude playing Paxton, Devi’s longtime fantasy crush and eventual boyfriend–for a short while was already 29 when the first season came out, and kinda looks it. Also, the other boy she’s into by the beginning of the second season is waaaaay too ripped to be a 16-17 year old whose main focus has been academics. That actor is now 23 or so and was the captain of his real-life high school football team. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the Tamil-Canadian actress who plays Devi (and who was finally chosen from an initial pool of something like 15000 girls, and for whom this was her first professional job) is only two years older than she’s playing, and is really perfect for the role–she’s a natural.