A review published ahead of its Tuesday, June 2, Hulu debut frames Mindy Kaling’s sitcom Not Suitable For Work as a throwback — and on screen Will Angus arrives as Davis, a junior financial analyst who, along with a colleague, is clocking 80-hour weeks while navigating a demanding boss.
That mix — workplace grind, roommate camaraderie and a nostalgic sitcom cadence — is why searches for not suitable for work are climbing as the streaming premiere approaches: the headline about a throwback tone gives potential viewers a quick hook, and the June 2 airdate turns curiosity into immediate appointment viewing.
The series follows five 20something neighbors in New York’s Murray Hill as they manage careers, friendships and love lives. The ensemble includes Ella Hunt, Avantika, Will Angus, Jack Martin, Nicholas Duvernay and Jay Ellis; Jay Ellis plays a demanding boss who intensifies the financial analysts’ long hours. Within the group, Davis and AJ are junior financial analysts putting in 80-hour weeks, Abby works as the assistant to a celebrity stylist, Kel is a med-school dropout working as a substitute teacher while pursuing acting, and Josh, the son of a network CEO, has used nepotism to land a PA role on an investigative news show.
The evidence cited for the throwback label is specific: the show’s structure and comic instincts echo the ensemble sitcom formula that powered hits in earlier decades. Comparisons in advance coverage name Friends, New Girl and How I Met Your Mother as obvious reference points — not as accusation, but as shorthand for the kind of sitcom rhythms and relationship-centered plotting viewers should expect.
That resemblance creates an awkward fit at the show’s center. Not Suitable For Work is set in present-day New York and written as a Gen Z story, yet its jokes, pacing and the characters’ social scripts feel planted in a 1990s-to-2000s sitcom logic. The result is an odd slipperiness: the cast are 20somethings by biography, but the show’s shape — punchline timing, ensemble focus, the way apartments and coffee hours are staged as emotional hubs — reads like material tailored for viewers who grew up on the earlier era of network comedies.
For the cast, that mismatch is both a constraint and an asset. Will Angus’s Davis embodies the tension: his 80-hour grind and interactions with a hard-driving boss give the series a workplace urgency, while his banter at home plays to the nostalgic sitcom machinery. The supporting roles — Abby’s assistant grind, Kel’s audition-hopeful side hustle and Josh’s nepotistic PA placement — populate the world with familiar sitcom beats, making the show immediately recognizable to anyone fluent in the earlier formulas.
What matters now is how that recognition translates into viewership on Hulu. The show is deliberately leaning on comfortable rhythms and a cast-heavy sitcom model; given the headlining comparison to ensemble comedies of the 1990s and 2000s, the clearest audience it will likely capture first are those same viewers who respond to nostalgia for that era. Whether younger viewers who identify as Gen Z will see themselves reflected in the series’ tone is the open question — but the premiere’s timing gives it a simple test: if early viewership skews toward the nostalgia crowd and social buzz centers on comparisons to older sitcoms, the show will have announced whom it serves.
On Tuesday, June 2, Hulu will supply the answer. The facts on offer — a five-person Murray Hill ensemble, a downtown New York setting, episodes built around careers and dating, and an on-the-nose throwback aesthetic — point to a show that wears its influences openly. For Will Angus’s Davis, that means his long workweeks and boss-driven pressure will be a dramatic anchor; for audiences, it means deciding quickly whether they’re tuning in for a fresh Gen Z story or for another take on a familiar, earlier sitcom mode.
