Falling for Fox’s “New Girl”

I hate pop-up ads on the Internet.  Whether I'm surfing the web for news, or looking up something obscure like the origin of bagels, I want an unobstructed view of my research content.  So imagine my disappointment with the Yahoo! homepage when a giant pop-up ad hogged the entire screen, completely blocking what I was really interested in: Toby McGuire and Leonardo DiCaprio's Sydney sailing trip.  It was an ad promoting Fox's new show, New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel.

Much like the foods at restaurants, I tend to avoid things with names I cannot pronounce.  So, in an attempt to further hang on to my grudge against the pop-up ad, I watched the series premier of New Girl, so in case it tanked, I had more ammunition to fuel my grudge.

*** SPOILER ALERT*** This show began in a predictable way.  A girl, conspicuously conservative and introverted decides to take a leap of faith and spice up her love life by returning home early to her boyfriend in nothing but a trench coat.  30 seconds into the show, I knew what was about to happen.  That poor girl was about to walk in on her cheating boyfriend.  While that did happen, the rest of show was nothing short of awesomely entertaining.

After discovering her boyfriend's infidelity, Deschanel's character, Jess, moved out of the apartment they shared and moved in with new formulaic sitcom roomates: racially and characteristically diverse men, a macho man, the model-chaser, and the nice, sensitive normal guy.

Deschanel's quirky charm and natural portrayal of a jilted, heart-broken woman were realistic without being overly exaggerated for comedic sitcom effects.  Adorably off-key, Deschanel's character sang through her heartbreak and bawled with the movie, Dirty Dancing, playing on loop.

The show had elements that I wish I could incorporate into my own life.  Particularly, the “Douche Jar.”  Every time Jess' model-chasing roommate makes a pretentious comment or abuses popular slang, he has to drop a dollar in the Douche Jar.  In order for the show to sustain itself, it needs more than just Deschanel's charm.  I look forward to the overall plot and other characters on the show to be more developed and multidimensional.