The Question, Tuesday 9/16/14: Will a New Season Mark a New Direction for New Girl & Mindy?

If yesterday's Dancing with the Stars Question was interesting because of how well the show did last year, today's beginning of the 2014-15 scripted programming season is interesting for exactly the opposite reason. New Girl's 2013-14 season saw one of the biggest in-season collapses for a veteran series in recent memory. It started with a 2.9 premiere against no real competition 52 weeks ago, settled at high-1's in the fall, mid-1's in January and low-1's (including a 1.1 and a mere 1.2 finale) in the spring. It's back alongside longtime lead-out The Mindy Project, whose finale actually did surprisingly OK, and they'll look to get another big head start on the competition. One problem for these shows may be the bomb-in-the-making lead-in from Utopia. Will a new season mark a new direction for New Girl and Mindy? That's The Question for Tuesday, September 16, 2014.

Premieres/Averages/Finales

2.9/1.67/1.2 (New Girl) 1.9/1.28/1.3 (The Mindy Project)

Last season, Fox rang up big numbers on pre-premiere Tuesday, which included the premieres of Dads (2.2) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2.6) in the 8:00 hour. New Girl's 2.9 was a whooping eight tenths ahead of any result the rest of the season (aside from the post-Super Bowl airing), while Mindy's 1.9 was 0.4 above the next highest ep. It will be very tough to repeat those bounces with Utopia airing at 8/7c; it'll do only about a third of last year's comedy hour rating. However, the utter lack of competition should still get these shows past last year's 1.2/1.3 finales (and probably, again, above any ratings the rest of the season).

New Girl PLUS The Mindy Project Over/Under: 2.85.

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