'New Girl' Season 2 With Zooey Deschanel Shares Success with 'The Mindy Project'

Zooey Deschanel's isn't the new girl on Fox anymore.

Mindy Kaling's new show The Mindy Project has been paired alongside Deschanel's New Girl on Fox's Tuesday night lineup.

Kaling, who had starred as 'Kelly Kapoor' in NBC's The Office, had a debut with 4.7 million viewers, which comparatively was down 23 percent from last year's premier of Raising Hope on the same time slot. However The Mindy Project performed better than Fox's other new sitcom Ben & Kate which opened to a weak 4.2 million viewers.

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The Mindy Project  did rank as number one for its timeslot among adult viewers under 35 and it also tied for second place with Dancing With the Stars among adult viewers under 50.

Both Mindy Project and Ben & Kate had the benefit of the same lead-in as Fox aired a special New Girl  which came in at 5.3 million viewers at 8 p.m., then aired New Girl's official regular time-period debut at 9 p.m. with 5.2 million viewers.

Deshanel's 9 p.m. time slot for New Girl battles with Fox competitor NBC with their new show Go On which received 7.3 million viewers. The new comedy starring former Friends star Matthew Perry was down slightly this week, but NBC will gladly accept this outcome against the return of New Girl. 

Kaling's show captured over 90 percent of the audience for the 9 p.m episode of New Girl meaning it may have captured a number of fans of Zooey Deschanel's "adorkable" TV persona as it is a similar girly type of show. It's also likely that fans of the former Office writer and supporting star are following her work and will sure to be happy to see her new venture doing so well on its premiere night.