New Girl

Coincidentally (honest), in the midst of my Zooey Deschanel week her new sit-com, New Girl, debuted. I forgot about it but with the magic on Comcast On Demand I defied those that would tell me when to watch it and viewed it at my leisure yesterday.

I'm something of a sit-com snob, grumbling about how the good old days of All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show are gone, and how the key cast departure on M*A*S*H was Gary Burghoff. I don't watch too many sit-comes regularly--The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and Modern Family. That's about it.

New Girl, therefore, wasn't bad, which is high praise from me. I didn't laugh out loud, and I don't think I smiled broadly, but it didn't suck and I like Zooey Deschanel, who plays a standard type but manages to make it interesting.

Deschanel is Jess, a quirky teacher (we haven't seen her teaching yet, so I don't know what that will be like) who gets cheated on by her live-in boyfriend. She answers an ad and moves into a vast apartment with three single guys. They are played by Jake Johnson, a bartender who pines for and drunk dials his ex-girlfriend; Max Greenfield, as some sort of businessman who has a tendency to take his shirt off and act like a "douchebag" (the guys have a "douchebag jar," which operated much like a swear jar); and Damon Wayans Jr. as a personal trainer who has a communication problem (Wayans, because of a commitment to another series, will be replaced starting in episode 2).

The laughs, such as they are, will clearly come from Deschanel's place in this bastion of bachelorhood--it's sort of like an update of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, minus four dwarves. There is no sexual tension between her and any of the guys, at least not yet--the series will have jumped the shark when it does.

A lot has been made of Deschanel being an indie movie presence who has gone to TV. That's fine by me, as she is engaging to watch, even if some of the gags (like her watching "Dirty Dancing" incessantly) are kind of tired. The creator is Elizabeth Merriweather, who favors the style of comedy that has one character saying something and immediately being proven wrong by a flashback, such as when Johnson denies drunk dialing his ex, only to immediately see a scene of him doing just that.

The series also has to decide whether Deschanel is hot or not. She's dowdied up, wearing glasses and dressing in vintage clothing, but she hangs out with models.The show seems to have her want to be a dork, but nothing can hide Deschanel's basic attractiveness. If she moved in with me I would begin lusting after her immediately.

I'll probably watch this show again, and since it got good ratings it's first time out it might be around for a while.