Breaking My New Girl Vow

I made a promise to watch every episode of Zooey Deschanel's sitcom "New Girl" and blog about it. But as one of the wisest sages of the 80's proclaimed: "Promises made are promises broken. Promises made always cause pain."

It was probably destined to end this way.

Let's be honest, this promise has caused me pain, particularly with the most recent episode of "New Girl" - "The Landlord" - which was on the level of that one "Big Bang Theory" episode I watched solely because it was about Nebraska Football which was a disgrace to Nebraska Football, Leslie Knope, and humanity. Yet in the face of this half-hour monstrosity I still wasn't about to renege on my promise. And then I read Josef Adalian's article for Vulture, "How TV Pilots Looking For Stars Are Benefitting From The Zooey Effect."

He writes: "...industry types we spoke to said (Deschanel's) smashingly successful move to the small screen in New Girl underscores just how dramatically the TV casting dynamic has changed in recent years." Smashingly successful?! This is partially MY fault! I've aided in making "New Girl" smashingly successful by tuning in to every single episode! Yet the article only became more troubling.

Adalian continues: "So which buzzworthy young 'uns are showing up on casting radars this pilot season? One agent source says he's heard many mentions of Malin Akerman." RECORD SCRATCH!!! That's my official Cinematic Crush you're talkin' about here! Key word: Cinematic. Look, I know she's great and dry and funny on "Children's Hospital" but this isn't what we want from Malin full time, is it? It can't be! Please! Tell me it isn't! She's a silver-screenster! If Ms. Akerman winds up on some TV show where she has to film an episode as noxious as "The Landlord" that would be too much to bear! It would be one thing if she landed the lead on, say, a Showtime original with a no b.s., hard-charging role with a creator who played by no rules but his own, but this article makes it sound like we're talking Big Four Network and that is "Sleepaway Camp" frightening (unless she lands a recurring role on "Community" as Britta's apolitical nemesis, except "Community" has basically been cancelled).

Save Malin. Stop The Zooey Effect.

In the face of this I can't continue to knowingly aid and abet The Zooey Effect. I made a promise, yes, but I also have principles. And to adhere to this promise in the face of these new revelations would be a severe soiling of my principles. Thus, my promise made must be broken. I'll feel bad abandoning Lizzy Caplan but it's a necessary sacrifice. And besides, now I can spend that half-hour writing or watching something on TMC or seeking out unreleased Lady Gaga tracks or reading Lady Gaga on Twitter or reading my book or going for a jog or cleaning my oven or staring at a wall or counting all the sheets of fabric softener I have left.

Au revoir, Zooey. I'm gonna get along without you now.

New Girl: The Landlord

Have you ever gone to amateur night at the local comedy club and some dude gets up there for the very first time and he's looking at notecards and he's sweating so bad you can see the pit stains from the back of the room and he keeps pulling at his hair like Chris Farley in that SNL sketch where he's interviewing Paul McCartney and you can hear him breathing (loudly) into the microphone while he's telling some shaggy dog story that has no point and no punch line and you're squirming in your seat and looking every which way for the waitress so you can order another drink to ease your misery but she's nowhere to be found and you're glaring at your idiot friend who dragged you to this instead of letting you stay home and watch the game and the M.C. is off to the side weeping - literally weeping - and you feel more sad and uncomfortable than that time you took your Spanish final at the University of Iowa and realized you knew approximately 10 of the 850 questions?

That's what last night's episode of "New Girl" felt like. It was the worst episode of TV to which I've been subjected since my friend Matt made me watch the "Whitney" pilot on his phone while we were driving to Wisconsin. What am I doing to myself? Is this how it feels to ride out a hurricane? If so, I've reached that point where I'm cowering in my bathtub and cursing myself for not heading inland.

New Girl: Jess & Julia

Zooey scolds Lizzy Caplan for threatening to completely usurup her on her own show.

It would appear the writers of "New Girl" are paying attention to those who moan about Zooey Deschanel's massive mercurialness for here is Lizzy Caplan as Julia, Nick's (Jake Johnson) lawyer girlfriend, who does not take a liking to Zooey's Jess, moaning, amongst other things, about her......massive mercurialness. Hmmmmmmmm. So Jess stands up for herself and explains that, for the love of God, she spends all day in the company of elementary school kids and so of course she talks like an adorkably mercurial twee-ster (?).

Is it a problem when it's clear a show is addressing its critics? Maybe, maybe not, what is a problem is when Lizzy Caplan turns up and threatens to yank the Star Rug right out from under the star's feet and take it for herself. Which, of course, is why before the season ends Nick will declare in heartfelt tones that he really likes and respects Julia but alas, his heart belongs to another (read: Jess) and so Julia will sulk off into the twilight. And that will be ridiculous because I can speak for all Nicks with 6 letter last names when I say we much prefer Lizzys to Zooeys. (Speaking of which, Lizzy never would have bonded with Zooey over crochet! Crochet?! Would Janis Joplin have sat down for high tea?! What the hell kind of falsifying of character was that, Elizabeth Meriweather?! You have her fighting BACK against all the mercurialness the whole episode only to have her cave in at the end?!)

In fact, do you think the season finale could detail it turning out that Schmidt (Max Greenfield) is actually a fugitive from Lexington, Kentucky on the lam and so in the final 5 minutes Timothy Olyphant turns up as Marshal Raylan Givens (I should note Olyphant's FX show "Justified" and NBC's "Parks and Recreation" are the only two TV shows I make any point to watch and while, yes, I also make a point to watch "New Girl" in that regard I consider myself more like an unpaid beat writer for the New Jersey Nets) and shoots everyone dead except Lizzy Caplan who, in another twist, is actually an undercover U.S. Marshal?

In fact, do you think that could happen next episode?

Please, Raylan, save the day and end our misery.

New Girl: Story of the 50

So our girl Jess, played by the mercurical Zooey Deschanel, has decided to put together a birthday party for her cool-guy (i.e. douchebag) roommate Schmidt and she's going through the whole what-have-you and winds up in another teacher's room at her school (she's a teacher, remember, even though we rarely see her teaching) and the teacher (Rachael Harris) enters and rather than question why Jess is snooping around in "the confiscation drawer" in her room immediately wonders if she can assist Jess in finding anything necessary, going so far as to suggest a "locker search" to acquire potential drugs.

The look on Jess's face made me wonder - is it always like this at her school? Had she just never noticed? Or does she notice all the time and ignore it? Or try to fight back against it in her own mercurial way? There seemed to be a bit of potential there - a high school where locker room searches so teachers can get the good stuff are the norm and, in turn, are cleaned up through the effervescent hijinks of its mercurial teacher. It could be a little off the wall, a little unpredictable, "Lean on Me" with a hipster. (And M. Ward could guest star as a janitor!)

Instead we quickly left the school and moved on to a party bus and a stripper who turned out to be (twist!) a male stripper and "bro juice" and Schmidt almost kissing Jess and........I'm melting.

I'm melting.

I'm melting.

New Girl: Golden Globe Nominations

Since Cinema Romantico is the web's "most celebrated 'New Girl' blogger" (as declared by Cinema Romantico itself) we would be remiss not to report that the show landed two Golden Globe nominations today - one for Zooey Deschanel for Best Actress In A Comedy and one for Best Comedy.

Thus, Cinema Romantico will be rooting for Amy Poehler to win Best Actress In A Comedy for "Parks and Recreation" and for "Parks and Recreation" to win Best Comedy.

Wait......what? "Parks and Recreation" wasn't nominated for Best Comedy? Oh. Huh. What about "Community?" That wasn't either? "30 Rock", maybe? No? What WAS nominated?

"Modern Family", "Enlightened", "Episodes", "Glee" and "New Girl"? THOSE are my choices? What the f--- is "Enlightened?"

Never mind. I won't be rooting for anything to win Best Comedy.

Go, Amy! (Note: Zooey's totally gonna win. Cuz, you know, the Hollywood Foreign Press will want to hear her acceptance speech more than the others.)

New Girl: The 23rd

Have you ever gone to a friend's holiday office party and realized right away the place where they're hosting it is a little drafty and a little worse for wear and the "filet mignon" is actually just flank steak and the open bar consists entirely of Miller Lite and Bud Light and the dee jay is playing Uriah Heep and everyone there is really nice and means well and is trying their best, gosh darn it, but the whole thing is just a deadly dull affair and you wouldn't mind slipping out a side door and maybe going to a movie because, hey, you really, really like movies, much more than holiday parties, anyway, but you can't because you're unfamiliar with the neighborhood and your friend was your ride and so you just hunker down and hope for the best and maybe force a fake smile or two and wonder why oh why you agreed to go along when your friend asked you?

Ladies and gentleman, I give you my viewing experience of the 9th episode of "New Girl."

New Girl: Bad In Bed

As it turns out, Jess (the mercurial Zooey Deschanel) is, as the episode title explicitly suggests, bad in bed. But is she bad in bed? Or does she just think she's bad in bed? And if so, does thinking you're bad in bed merely result in you being bad in bed because you're convinced you're bad in bed? I'm reminded of the wise words from one of my absolute all-time favorite sitcoms (that was tragically killed off much, much too soon), "It's Like, You Know", when one character says to another in regards to the realm of sex: "It's hard to be good because you're trying so hard to be good."

Here's the thing, in the latter show the conversation that generated that line was taking place between two characters who not only genuinely came across as friends but genuinely came across as having a conversation (if you catch my drift). It was funny, really funny, but it also felt really real. In this particular episode of "New Girl", the morning after Jess has scared away Male Jess (Justin Long - apparently the writers didn't forget about him!) on account of being bad in bed when she chooses to indulge in the faulty lessons of porn movies and literally choke him, there is a sweet moment when Nick and Winston explain to Jess that her sexual expertise isn't the most critical issue. "He doesn't care what you do. I've seen the way that boy looks at you." This is what Winston says. But he says something else. He says, "You need to stop worrying about it" - meaning being good in bed - "completely." CUE THE RECORD SCRATCH!!! There was a scene before the the scene in which Jess scares off Male Jess by being bad in bed in which all the guys, including Winston, are giving her advice on how to be good in bed. If she needs to stop worrying about it completely then why don't they tell her that then?

"New Girl" has gotta take the Christmas break to decide if it wants to ridiculously sweet or sweetly ridiculous because it's just kind of hanging out in dreaded no-man's-land right now. Finding the proverbial sweet spot can be difficult, yes, and many, many shows never find it, but at this point "New Girl" is forcing its characters to act out of character just to try and sell a little extra funny. People will only buy for so long.

Postscript: And don't even get me started on the side-story of Nick hating to get his haircut because he hates the pressure of having to make conversation with the person cutting his hair which is exactly like this Nick - the Nick writing this post. I am always terrified to get my hair cut because I am always terrified of getting the haircut "artist" who wants to make endless chit-chat. Ugh. I was so, so, so excited when I realized this was going to be a plot point of the episode and then......it was forgotten. Not completely, but essentially. What a waste.

New Girl: Bells

"What do you mean? I make bells fun."

The latest episode of "New Girl" centers around the mercurial Zooey Deschanel's Jess bringing a few students over to her loft in lieu of detention to form a not-so-super group of bell players. Yes, bell players. This inevitably leads to Winston (Lamorne Morris), still trying to land a job of any kind after the failure of his professional basketball career in Latvia, discovering he is - gasp! - a naturally born bell player which naturally leads to many "Eye of the Tiger" references. Meanwhile the other two roommates Nick and Schmidt wage figurative war over......uh......well......I forget. I confess I had my mind on something else. Namely, the way Jess behaved around her students, which is to say not all that unlike the way she acts around her male roommates - wild hand gestures, ridiculous accents, every now and then bursting into song.

Have you seen the 2002 French film "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not"? In it Audrey Tatou plays an art student who is desperately in love with a married man who, as she explains to her friends, plans to leave his wife and take up a new relationship with Tatou's character. Except midway through the film it rewinds back to the beginning and we see the same story told from the married man's perspective and realize that, in short, Tatou's character is a rabid stalker.

I propose an episode of "New Girl" in which we see a day in the life of Jess at school from her viewpoint - twee and adorkable, her spontaneous accents and songs delighting the children, so on and so forth - and then see the same day from the viewpoint of her students to whom she comes across as weird and annoying, her spontaneous accents and songs being laughed at behind her back.

Hmmmmmmm......I don't know. That sounds more like an episode of "Community." Speaking of "Community", how 'bout a Jeff Winger speech to bring us home?

"Look, 'New Girl', I've been watching you for over two months now. Friends tell me I should abandon you, other friends tell me I'm being too analytical and not giving you a fair chance. What they don't understand is our situation has gone beyond that. I made a promise to you, 'New Girl', a promise to watch every episode of your first season and blog about it and, so help me God, that's what I'm going to do. This is Christmas, and Christmas is not a time to renege on your commitments. If you promise your son you're getting him the biggest, baddest action figure on the market, then you're getting your son the biggest, baddest action figure on the market, even if you have to pepper spray an innocent Wal Mart Greeter to do it. If you promise to feature real life sheep in the town live nativity, then you're featuring real life sheep in the town live nativity even if you have to steal a few of them from the local petting zoo. And I'm not reneging on my commitment to you, 'New Girl.' But I might I ask of you just one thing: that you don't give us a Christmas episode featuring an end where all your main characters put aside their differences, gather around the Christmas tree and ponder the 'true' meaning of Christmas. Because that's the 'true' meaning of Christmas. Getting what you want."

New Girl: Thanksgiving

"Brooklyn in general is not a fun experience for me, because I look and act nothing like Zooey Deschanel." - Meghan McCain

When I saw this quote I could only think, Yeesh. A woman who has been experiencing backlash since roughly 2008 has just contributed to the ongoing Zooey Deschanel Backlash. Had we entered some sort of Backlash Twilight Zone?

Then I watched "New Girl's" obligatory Thanksgiving episode and realized, improbably, things were about to get taken up even another notch. The story centered the mercurial Zooey Deschanel's Jess bringing her fellow teacher Paul (Justin Long) over to share Thanksgiving with she, her three roommates and her pal Cece. Paul, as it happens, wears bow ties and plays the violin and sings songs to himself detailing what he's doing at any given moment and fancies Pumpkin Ale as his adult beverage of choice and flips to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in lieu of football. In other words, Justin Long is just as mercurial as Zooey Deschanel. Thus, if the show is on the verge of turning these two into an ongoing couple will the world, the Twitter-sphere, the what-have-you, simply explode from over-usage of the words "quirky" and "adorkable" and "twee"?

Stay tuned.

God help us all.

In other TV news, NBC's "Community" was put on hiatus, most likely for not creating a Thanksgiving episode involving a turkey in the dryer and a girl yelling about wanting to have sex with a guy she really likes thinking the guy she really likes can't hear her when (surprise!!!!!) he, in fact, can.

New Girl: Cece Crashes

Once when I was with a lady friend (and I mean that in the most literal way possible - a lady who was just a friend) I noticed a striking blonde on the street adorned in black tights tucked into black boots (my favorite look for the opposite sex) and I admit to staring perhaps longer than was necessary and making a tasteful if nonetheless, shall we say, guy-oriented remark. My lady friend shook her head and said: "I thought you were better than that." I did not answer "I know - I am.....sometimes" but that is how the Nick of "New Girl" responded when Jess said the exact same thing to him in the wake of him checking out her pal Cece.

This past Saturday during college football's so-called "Game of the Century" between LSU and Alabama that ended up more along the lines of The 2nd Best Game (Probably, But Maybe Not) On Saturday November 5th With A 7 PM Kickoff, a couple of my friends and I wound up on the topic of television which led to them both into advising they have been watching "New Girl." They seemed to be enjoying it. Not loving it, not even liking it a whole lot, just, you know, enjoying it. Less than outright adoration, but certainly more than indifference. Having seen every episode I immediately begin ticking off my problems with it. My two friends wondered if perhaps I was being too critically-minded.

I confessed that on account of the fact I watch very few television shows and the one that I do watch most religiously and most excitedly being "Parks and Recreation" that, well, I can't help but compare "New Girl" to NBC's critical darling. Is this fair? Perhaps not, but I also don't subscribe to The "Rocky Balboa" Theory which stipulates that simply because something isn't terrible it's also good. Nope. No chance. I think "New Girl" should be held to a high standard and so should every single show on every single television channel. So imagine my surprise when I found myself sort of enjoying this week's episode of "New Girl."

Jess has arrived at this bass-pumpin', booty-shakin' club to pick up her model friend Cece. (Why is someone like Jess friends with model? Never mind. Move along. Nothing to see here.) Jess uneasily forces her way through the crowd and to the dee jay both where Cece is admonishing the dee jay, who she has apparently been sorta seeing, for kissing another woman, to which Jess says to the dee jay, "Yoooooou, get away from here." And I laughed. I did. Specifically because of how the mercurial Zooey Deschanel says the line. And then they flee from the club and the scene switches to the sidewalk outside and we realize Jess is wearing......soft pants (i.e. pajama pants). I, if you didn't know, am a lifelong supporter of The Soft Pants Movement. The first thing I do when I get home from work? Get in the soft pants. You're damn right, I do, and here was the mercurial Zooey Deschanel in soft pants......in public.

So Jess takes Cece back to her place and immediately the douchebag (what happened to the douchebag jar in the Pilot? Never mind. Move along. Nothing to see here.) Schmidt and Winston begin putting the moves on her because, you know, she's hot, and poor Nick is annoyed because Nick just wanted some alone time. I, if you didn't know, am a lifelong supporter of The Alone Time Movement.

Eventually, though, this episode will reveal what we all knew was coming from Day 1 which is that maybe, possibly, Nick has a thing for Jess which Jess doesn't take so well because Jess thinks they should - say it with me! - just be friends but also because Jess is slightly neurotic and leads to my favorite scene of the episode when Jess is in the car with Nick and becomes convinced that he does like her and she becomes so freaked out she simply gets out of the car and runs away.

Eventually the two of them deal with it by not necessarily dealing with it outright but dealing with it via little looks exchanged while they both brush their teeth which is ripped straight outta "Bring It On." (Not that I would know that. Never mind. Move along. Nothing to see here.) Look, the show ain't perfect. They keep winnowing down Zooey's opening credits song to the point where by Episode 10 it's merely going to cut off immediately after she asks "Who's that girl?" and the show's occasional decision to attempt an "Arrested Development"/"30 Rock" flashback always ends woefully and the plotting is and will undoubtedly remain awfully familiar but this episode - this episode, "Cece Crashes" - was at least 62% better than that one episode of "Big Bang Theory" I subjected myself to solely because it was about Nebraska Football. God, was that a mistake. Which is to say I can simply keep taking comfort in the fact that "New Girl" isn't as bad as "The Big Bang Theory." Or "Whitney." Or "Perfect Couples." Or "Outsourced."

Reader: "Wait, isn't that essentially the same thing as subscribing to The Rocky Balboa Theory?"
Nick: "Well, yeah."
Reader: "I thought you were better than that."
Nick: "I know - I am......sometimes."

New Girl: Naked

When your guest star has the best line reading of the whole episode, there's problems.

Let me spin you a scenario: Nick needs to get ready for a date with a bartendress (Lake Bell). So he goes to his bedroom, shuts the door, cranks some music, and starts dancing. (And now the similarities between how "New Girl's" Nick and this Nick get ready for a date end.) Then he removes his clothes - all his clothes - studies himself in the mirror and keeps dancing. His female roommate Jess is trying to get some work done but is unable to on account of the loud music. She goes to his room, opens the door and - ai-yi-yi! - sees his what-have-ya. (I've had female roommates. Two of them, in fact. And neither of them never not knocked. Just sayin'.) She apologizes. Then she laughs. Yikes! And she quickly exits.

Okay, so the setup and the payoff was obvious and predictable. I mean, as soon as his pants came off what did you think was gonna happen? And now we know Nick will feel inadequate and Jess will try desperately, ridiculously to remedy the situation and that it will end with Nick seeing Jess naked. But this isn't an Agatha Christie novel. There aren't always points for shocking the audience. You can roll with predictability and still emerge triumphant. At the same time, it is the bed show creator Elizabeth Meriweather and her writing staff have made, thus they must sleep in it. We, the viewers, need some fresh sheets, a warm pillow, a good night's sleep. "New Girl", unfortunately, doesn't do much beyond the expected with the situation and doesn't do it with much inspiration.

Points need to be given, at least, for the show focusing on the guys, giving not only Nick the main plotline but the other two male roommates Schmidt and Winston (who I think I might have still been calling Coach in previous blog posts because Coach was the name of the character as played by Damon Wayans Jr. before Wayans Jr. was replaced after one episode with Lamorne Morris who - I’m sorry, Morris family members - is just obscenely un-charismatic - seriously, the nameless extras on "Cheers" had more charisma than Morris) the secondary plotline in the form of Winston trying to update himself on pop culture to land a job (?) after being away in Latvia for so long to play basketball. If the main plotline is middling than this second one is re-heated hot dogs from the gas station.

Jess and Nick’s story is resolved by way of Nick getting the female bartendress back to his room, though Jess has slipped into the room in just a towel in order to show herself naked to Nick to level the playing field but a moment earlier (spoiler alert!). And so she climbs around while they mess around and they eventually spot her and she drops the towel and so on and so forth. That’s when it hit me.

So much has been made recently of Zooey Deschanel’s mercurialness but the show isn’t actually playing to her strengths. They don't want her to be the sitcom star for the hipsters, they want her to be a latter day Lucille Ball. They want to show us that everything she’s doing is out of love and that in the end, despite how wrong she made everything, she genuinely only wants it all to be right and this, for better or worse, mainly worse, is the best way she knows to make that happen.

Instead they’re teetering on the edge of making Jess a clueless buffoon.

New Girl & Lines

On account of the Major League Baseball Playoffs taking over Fox TV for the next few weeks, "New Girl" is not set to air a new episode again until the first week of November. Thus, my "New Girl" blogging will have no choice but to go on hiatus. Sigh...just when it was starting to win me over (read: wear me down). But I thought I'd write about something I'd been thinking about for the last week and a half or so.

A couple Thursdays back on my current favorite TV show "Parks and Recreation" there is a moment when Ron Swanson's villainous ex-wife Tammy #1 (indie queen Patricia Clarkson) has shown up at his office on account of him being audited by the IRS and her leading the charge. In an attempt to save Ron, his friend and co-worker, the ever valiantly clueless Leslie Knope, tries to explain Ron is needed in a meeting. Tammy #1 replies: "I'm sure Ron will remember the meeting fondly when he's making toilet wine in federal prison in Terre Haute."

That line made me laugh so hard I cried. Honest to goodness. I cried. I had tears streaming down my face. It's not just a great comedic line but a great phonetic line. Go ahead and say it out loud. ......I'm waiting...... "I'm sure Ron will remember the meeting fondly when he's making toilet wine in federal prison in Terre Haute." And it dawned on me right then and there - in four episodes "New Girl" hasn't had a line in the same hemisphere as that line.

TV shows are all about quotable lines. That's what allows for word of mouth. I love "Parks and Recreation" so much partly because it's so sweet and genuine and partly because all the characters are awesome but I also love it because week after week after week it serves up deft, hilarious lines. They keep coming. It never ends. Stacked right on top of one another, kinda like how moments after Tammy #1 says this, the mega-brilliant Aubrey Plaza's dryer-than-Death-Valley April Ludgate says to the camera "She's like the cold, distant mother I never had - I love her" which just made the tears stream faster.

So get it together "New Girl." No buzz for your show is gonna build if you don't have people saying to one another things like, "Last night, was LITERALLY the funniest line I've ever heard." 

New Girl: Wedding

You know, it's funny. I'm going to a wedding this Saturday. Weddings are so fantastic because they somehow become these pockets of time unto themselves where everyone is happy and dressed to kill and there are refreshments and merriment and great music (so long as you have a great DJ) and you inevitably catch yourself looking around at a moment when you're sitting down catching your breath and thinking, "Why isn't life always like this?" And then you remember, "Oh. Right. I'm wearing my rose-colored glasses right now."

The third episode of "New Girl" revolves around that old standby, a wedding. (Note: On the way to the Nebraska/Wisconsin game this past Saturday my friend Matt forced me to watch the pilot episode of NBC's "Whitney" on his phone to prove to me just how awful it was, an episode that revolved around......a wedding. And believe it or don't, but "New Girl's" version, while 3,343 x worse than "Parks and Recreation's" Andy/April wedding episode last year, was 2,772 x better than "Whitney's" version of a wedding. Whitney Cummings isn't mercurial. She's just shrill.) Nick's ex, The Waitress (i.e. Caroline), will be at the wedding and, thus, Nick and Coach and Schmidt enlist Jess to masquerade as Nick's date. One caveat: Jess can't be herself. No mercurial dresses, no nicknames, no chicken dancing, no - as the saying is now going with Zooey - adorkableness. Which is why it's supposed to be funny when 7 seconds after slipping into a fairly stunning dress Jess puts in buck teeth. Sigh.  (Though I did totally dig Jess's biker shorts under the dress, a gag which lacked a proper payoff.)

So at the wedding all three guys are set up with their own storylines: Nick will eventually re-gravitate to The Waitress (i.e. Caroline) and then find out she has a boyfriend and then get sloppy drunk, Schmidt will find himself smitten with a former crush who is now sober while fighting off the advances of his wedding-only sex buddy (Natasha Lyonne, who I remember having a little bit of a crush on back in the days of "American Pie" and "Slums Of Beverly Hills" and who has now apparently turned into - forgive me, dear readers - Shaquille O'Neal in the off season) and Coach finds himself in competition with a cocky kid usher. The show's aim with these multiple storylines is admirable and, I think, more of an attempt to give them all personality (as opposed to archetypes) but they still haven't come anywhere close to figuring out how to incorporate this many angles into a 20 minute run time. The pace has gotta pick up or else they'll feel slack and unresolved. Like they do here. Coach's, in particular, is barely followed through with in any capacity whatsoever. Did they run out of time or did they have no idea where to take it?

(Parenthetical Tangent: "New Girl" also seems determined to end every single episode with all four putting aside their minor squabbles and coming together as one unified quartet in some sort of ridiculous but sweet manner. Seriously, this is how all three episodes have ended. It's like the way "Scrubs" always used to end with the "lesson".)

If anything, watching "New Girl" has honed my appreciation for a show like the majestic "Arrested Development" which continually managed to work in something like 22 storylines every single episode and still have plenty of time for witty lines and brilliant sight gags and both poignancy and poignant absurdity and just plain absurdity. Poor "New Girl" can't even remember they had a cocky kid usher for more than 14 minutes before he's already been unwittingly tossed on the scrap pile.

Yet this episode, more than the other two, suggested that maybe, possibly, potentially something is there, simmering. Zooey's getting into the groove, I think. She spends a good chunk of the episode over-acting but you know what? This ain't "All The Real Girls." It's a freaking sitcom. Let it loose! I enjoy her over-acting. That's been my favorite part of all these shows. Her. The payoffs still need to hit harder and/or actually exist and that pace really needs to find the zone and they really need to figure out who in the hell these three guys are but if they can do all that......

I'm beginning to understand the life of a TV critic. Fox just picked up "New Girl" for whole the season and now we're all stuck. Those have us who have agreed to subject ourselves to every episode want it to get better and are maybe even willing to lie to ourselves to convince ourselves it's better. The TV critic for the Chicago Tribune wrote this last week: "Viewers will come to see Deschanel, but they'll stay for the whole package because smart writing, confident timing and characters that are both familiar yet surprisingly fresh make 'New Girl' the most promising comedy, and one of the most promising shows, of the season."

Last week my reaction to that sentence was, What in holy hell is that person talking about? What show are they watching? Now I'm coming around to it. The TV critic is merely watching "New Girl" with rose-colored glasses.

New Girl: Kryptonite

"Opening Day is about hope ... beautiful, glorious and irrational hope. And second days are about the slow and irretrievable loss of that hope." - Joe Posnanski

The second episode of mercurial Zooey Deschanel's new Fox sitcom is titled "Kryptonite." This is in reference to the fact that Zooey's - er, I mean Jess's moronic ex-boyfriend she never would have dated in the first place is her Kryptonite, that, as it did to Superman, saps her strength. Oddly, though, this whole Kryptonite angle is barely played up. One of her three male roommates - Nick (Jake Johnson) - makes mention of this fact and......that's all we get. I hate to already be comparing a new TV show I'm watching to my beloved "Seinfeld" but seriously, man, "Seinfeld" knew how to employ a Superman reference. In "New Girl" it's like they titled the episode after it to appeal to a certain demographic and then forgot about it.

As the episode starts we learn, strangely, that Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.) is...uh...apparently no longer on the show. He has moved out and another black guy named Winston (Lamorne Morris) has moved in. Why did Coach move out? ...uh... Apparently because Damon Wayans Jr. chose to return to his old TV show "Happy Endings" and the producers of "New Girl" didn't want to re-shoot the pilot because...uh...that would make sense? But never mind! Coach is gone, Winston is in! Stop asking questions, damn it! And it turns out Winston is a former professional basketball player ("In Latvia - he went pro in Latvia") which conveniently allows for a basketball to be bounced around inside the gang's spacious apartment and the second Jess gets her hands on the basketball you're thinking, "No, no, no, no, don't throw it into something. Do not throw it into something! Do you hear me, Jess, DO NOT THROW THAT BASKETBALL INTO-"

She throws it into the TV and it breaks. Sigh.

I will, however, give "New Girl" points for not just making the basketball-thrown-into-the-TV a throwaway gag and instead making it the primary plot point, as in the loss of the TV causes the guys to force Jess to confront the moronic ex-boyfriend she never would have dated in the first place to get her stuff back, her stuff which, of course, includes a TV. And that leads to Nick referencing Kryptonite and the whole gang - including Jess's pal with the long legs and the snappy dress - to drive over to the house of the moronic ex-boyfriend she never would have dated in the first place so Jess can confront him. (My favorite part of the whole episode was Jess taking about 12 or 13 spins around the block in her car in a dubious effort to build up the courage to confront the moronic ex-boyfriend she never would have dated in the first place. That reminded me of myself.)

The secondary storyline involves the three guys attempting to determine the hiearchy of their group, as in who's the "top dog", which brought to mind the three guys on "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" attempting to determine who was The Brains, The Looks and The Wild Card. And, frankly speaking, that show did their storyline with a whole lot more chutzpah. "New Girl" barely follows through with it. Come on, writers, mine deeper, take it further! The set-up isn't enough on its own! You're getting paid for scripts, not just ideas! (Aren't you?)

So taking stock of "New Girl" from the first episode to the second it seems that not only have the three guys failed to progress, they have, in fact, regressed, which is due to the fact that - I can't believe I'm saying this - Damon Wayans Jr. seemed to have the best comedic timing of the four. This doesn't bode well. There seems to be a bit of potential in the tug and pull of the relationship between Jess's pal with the long legs and the snappy dress who thinks she should be giving Jess advice, not the guys, and then the guys giving advice anyway and I hope they play on it and it was also a nice move to get the moronic ex-boyfriend she never would have dated in the first place out of the picture (I hope) early on so we can move on to hopefully better and brighter things for Jess (which may or may not involve a will they? won't they? situation with Nick which is entirely dependent on show creator Elizabeth Meriweather - and let me make myself clear - MAKING SURE SUCH A THING DOES NOT HAPPEN).

Look, I'll be honest, the episode didn't exactly thrill me but it's just like last week......when Zooey is sitting on the couch at the end in the glasses and the tee shirt and the jeans and the blue shoes and suggests they watch "Adventures In Babysitting", well, how the hell does a guy named Nick bolt? He's an insult to Nicks everywhere. I'd stay. And I'm going to. This is a new relationship, people, and you have to work at it.

New Girl: Pilot

"No Strings Attached", a tepidly received film released earlier this year starring (Oscar winner) Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher as sex buddies, was originally a screenplay titled, uh, "Sex Buddies" that famously turned up on the 2008 Hollywood Black List (the best of the best of unproduced scripts). It was written by Elizabeth Meriweather. One can't help but wonder how much of Meriweather's original "Sex Buddies" vision made it into "No Strings Attached." Was Meriweather a potenial genius stifled by the lameness of director Ivan Reitman? Well, guess who both created Fox's "New Girl" and wrote the Pilot episode? Elizabeth Meriweather. Game on! Show me what ya got!

The mercurial Zooey Deschanel.

Mercurial Zooey Deschanel (note: for the duration of my "New Girl" blogging Ms. Deschanel will be referred to as mercurial because EVERYONE calls her quirky) is Jess Day, a teacher (note: I predict we don't actually see her teaching until Episode 4) who has just had her heart trampled by her boyfriend in the usual philanderous ways. Jess promptly answers an ad for a roommate and moves in with three guys in a spacious apartment. The guys: Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.) and Nick (Jake Johnson). (Wait, wait, wait! Why didn't anyone tell me there was a character named Nick?!) Schmidt is a douchebag, Coach is, well, obviously, and Nick is still obsessed with The Watiress. (Okay, that's not really her name in "New Girl" but, seriously, she's The Waitress.)

Admittedly, the opening moments are a bit suspect. Jess returns to her place pretending to be a stripper to excite her boyfriend who's about to break her heart. This sequence manages to fit in 1.) Lowbrow humor - "Two Boobs Johnson" 2.) Pratfalls - Jess accidentally knocking over a potted plant while poorly executing stripper moves and 3.) Singing - because Zooey Deschanel is a singer, don't you know? The rest of the episode proceeds mostly predictably. Jess sits around crying and watching "Dirty Dancing" and the guys try to get her out of the house to have a "rebound" which goes less than well while they all still find their way to a happy ending. The guys in this initial episode mostly just exist to prop up the lead actress. There are a few decent lines tucked in here and there though usually this has as much to do with the way Deschanel says them (this girl really knows how to employ a pause) then with the lines themselves.

I know that in America we like to judge things within 2.5 seconds and then move on to judging the next thing (which we inevitably also won't like) but this is a Pilot. The "Seinfeld" pilot had Pete's Luncheonette and didn't have Elaine. The "Parks and Recreation" pilot was fairly terrible and now it's the best show on TV. Certainly there have been good pilots in the past but they're not always the harbinger. Pilots can be tough because you're too busy establishing your premise to really let your characters breathe. "New Girl", though, clearly does have a sweet vibe going for it. Rather than serving up a quartet where the massive differences are exploited and they all hate each other yet all live together anyway because, uh, well, you know, they sorta have to so there's a show, "New Girl" presents four people who appear to genuinely like one another and are willing to navigate through their differences. This potentially makes it anti-hipster, I think, which should earn it a few points.

I guess what it really boils down to is this: if I had not locked myself into returning for the next episode on account of my blogging experiment, would I watch it again? Well, it seemed to me that the mercurial Ms. Deschanel (also a producer on the show) spent as much time flirting as acting. Not flirting with another character, mind you, but with me, with you, with us. She was appealing to indie band geeks with her singing and to the nerds with her "Lord of the Rings" references and to the idiots who can't communicate with the opposite sex with her foiled attempts at talking to guys ("Hey, sailor!") and to the Williamsburg residents with her glasses and to the ladies because I just assume all ladies really do get over break-ups by watching "Dirty Dancing" 7 times a day. (Or am I stereotyping? Or was Meriweather stereotyping herself? Never mind).

And if Zooey Deschanel flirts with you, I can't see how anyone wouldn't want to go on a second date.

Blogging New Girl

Lately, readers, I've been in the midst of a mild identity crisis.

I've always had the hipster in me. I wear black frame glasses. I'm snobbish about my coffee. I used to drink PBR (but I can't anymore on account of my stomach, which makes me an "aged" hipster). I worship Sofia Coppola. I wear sneakers that were shipped from Europe. I wear shirts of bands you've never heard of. I endlessly blather about how freaking awesome Zola Jesus is and yet do not - in any way, shape or form - want the mainstream to find out about her.

But then again, I'm not a hipster. I don't like things ironically. Ever. I might be the least ironic person you've ever met. Down with irony, up with earnestness. I love watching college football. I love wearing Nebraska football tee shirts. I put "Salt" in my Top 5 Movies last year. I don't put gel in my hair (the only woman I've ever worn gel for is Kylie Minogue). I think Debbie Gibson makes Bethany Cosentino look like Ashlee Simpson. And when the mainstream finds out about Zola Jesus I will not love her any less.

Zooey Deschanel has kind of become the hipster pin-up girl, and when I saw a preview for her brand new TV show on Fox called "New Girl" (premiering tonight: 8:00 CST) during a pre-movie movie ad I, a person who watches exceedingly few TV shows, immediately thought to myself, "Man, that looks like my sort of show." Which immediately made me think, "Huh. Am I a hipster?" I immediately decided to conduct an experiment, and so I plan on watching every episode of "New Girl" during its inaugural season (as many of them on their actual air date as possible) and then blogging about it.

There will be approximately 2,300 media outlets writing about "New Girl" this forthcoming television season but I promise none of them will take it to the same places as Cinema Romantico. Think of it like a trip to Peru. Do you want Entertainment Weekly or TV Guide or USA Today, etc., as your chaperones and go to Lima and Machu Picchu with a huge tour group and eat pre-planned meals or do you want to travel by bus with Cinema Romantico and see the remote parts of the Andes and the untouched rain forests of the Amazon basin and eat from roadside stands where the odds of getting food poisoning are 50/50?

I promise this will be a network television adventure and by May 2012 we will potentially have an answer to the question...... is Nick a hipster?