‘Heeeey, girl … ’ — what the hell happened to you?
When Fox’s “New Girl” showed up on the scene in 2011, I was initially repelled by the misguided term “adorkable,” appended to any and all marketing for the show about a newly single woman (Zooey Deschanel) who moves in with three hapless dudes (Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield and, initially, Damon Wayans Jr.).
But Elizabeth Meriwether’s show won me over quickly by subverting its boneheaded p.r. campaign and delivering a truly funny sitcom about a quartet with an impressive assortment of eccentricities among them. It wasn’t all about Jess (Deschanel); it was about the interchange between four friends in a generation that viewed boundaries and relationships between the genders very differently, and more flexibly, than its sitcom predecessors. The swap of Wayans for Lamorne Morris didn’t hurt, either; the latter’s impeccable comic timing and facility with weirdness added more to the mix than Wayans’ hyper Coach character.
The show also trained a skilled eye on realistic twentysomething roommate situations, amping them up to maximum hilarity without wandering into overt wackiness. One of the first season’s best gags centered around the use — and cleanliness — of a towel in the communal bathroom:
Schmidt: How do you think this is your towel? Do you even wash it?
Nick: No, I don’t wash the towel. The towel washes me. Who washes a towel? You wash your towel?
Schmidt: You never wash your towel?!
Nick: What am I gonna do? Wash the shower next?! Wash a bar of soap? You gotta think here, pal!
Schmidt: I’m furious right now.
In the middle of Season 2, the show took a dangerous turn by pairing up Jess and Nick (Johnson) with a passionate kiss and, eventually, a full-on relationship. But that’s not really where the problem lies.
It’s fallen prey to that easiest of traps, the one where you take four characters with capital-q Quirks and plug them into increasingly absurd situations. “New Girl” did this especially egregiously with the fussy, type-A Schmidt, who was so sparkling when used sparingly throughout an episode — not as the building block for a whole story arc. You can only go to the “douche jar” so many times.
I finally gave up watching halfway through last year’s Thanksgiving episode, the one where Nick decides the whole gang is going to the woods to forage for an old-school dinner. Only — get this — some of them sneak out to a supermarket and buy food, trying to pass it off as items they’ve found in the woods! And — I can’t go on, because I literally turned it off in disgust halfway through and don’t know what happened.
I waded back in for the Super Bowl episode, because any excuse to see Prince. But that sentiment seemed to be about as much thought as the writers had given it, too: The half hour was mostly dedicated to various cast members freaking out to be in the presence of Prince (who was, admittedly, as awesomely strange as you’d hoped). It was yet another crrrazy setup that happened to have the advantage of an ultra-reclusive pop legend at its center.
My theory? Creator Meriwether, and one of her key writers/producers Kay Cannon (“Pitch Perfect”), have simply moved further and further from the show’s day-to-day operation. Neither has that many writing credits, but earlier seasons bear the mark of their clever dialogue, the kind that lets you know it’s gently sending up the conventional format it was built upon. These days, you get the feeling the writing has mostly been farmed out to a team that really wants to get at the spirit of the old days, and simply can’t figure out how.
The show even articulated the nature of its own demise: as Nick said upon hooking up with his hot boss, “I know this isn’t gonna end well, but the whole middle part is going to be awesome.”