Mindy Kaling says her new Hulu series Not Suitable for Work is the final chapter in an informal TV trilogy inspired by different stages of her life. Speaking on Today, the 6-time Emmy nominee described the show as the last of three series she has made about young people, following Never Have I Ever and Sex Lives of College Girls. She said Never Have I Ever was loosely based on her childhood and the loss of a parent, while Sex Lives of College Girls drew only very loosely from her time at Dartmouth.
Never Have I Ever, starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, aired on Netflix for four seasons from 2020 to 2023 and followed a first-generation Indian-American teenager navigating high school after a difficult family year. Sex Lives of College Girls, which starred Amrit Kaur alongside Reneé Rapp, Pauline Chalamet and Alyah Chanelle Scott, ran for three seasons on HBO Max from 2021 to 2025 and centered on four college roommates experiencing independence, ambition and relationships at Essex College.
Kaling said Sex Lives of College Girls was less autobiographical than her other work, joking, “Not that much sex happening there,” in reference to her own college experience. By contrast, Not Suitable for Work pulls from what she called her ambitious early 20s in New York City, when she was eager to speed toward success. The new Hulu comedy follows a group of 20-somethings living across the hall from one another in New York, each trying to make it in their chosen field. The cast includes Avantika Vandanapu, Ella Hunt, Jack Martin, Nicholas Duvernay and Will Angus.
Kaling also made clear that the trilogy idea was not originally planned as a formal creative strategy. She said framing the three shows as a connected body of work is, in her words, “the pretentious way” she likes to describe her career now. Still, the pattern is clear: three series, three life stages, and a consistent focus on young adults figuring out who they are. With Not Suitable for Work now streaming on Hulu, Kaling appears to be closing a major chapter in her television storytelling, moving from adolescence to college to the uncertain hustle of early adulthood.
