The allure of Zooey Deschanel is unexplainable. Yes, she’s adorable, but so are a myriad of other actresses. She can sing, but not every devoted Deschanel fan is equally obsessed with her indie-folk duo ‘She & Him.’ So it has to be the quirkiness. Fans must think, ‘Hey! She has weird personality ticks just like me. I totally relate to her.’ At least that’s what the creators of her new show, ‘New Girl,’ must have been banking on.

Deschanel plays Jess, a schoolteacher recovering from a bad breakup. For reasons that are not entirely explained in the show, she moves in with three single guys. Three and a half minutes into the pilot, Jess declares, ‘I want to live here!’ out of the blue. The guys let her because she mentioned that she has hot model friends. Faulty premise aside, a weird girl starts living with three dudes and hilarity ensues.

Well, not exactly. A line most likely ad-libbed by Deschanel provided the only laugh-out-loud moment. (‘I like your glasses.’ Cue Jess: ‘They help me see.’) In fact, most of the pleasure derived from watching ‘New Girl’ is a result of Deschanel’s innate cuteness. But the show tests the limits of that by ratcheting up her ‘weird’ factor. Examples include her ‘Lord of the Rings’ references and her ignorance to the meaning of the euphemistic phrase ‘motor boating.’ She also makes up words like ‘geesh,’ breaks out into spontaneously made up songs and greets potential dates with the phrase ‘Hey, sailor.’ Cute and quirky? Yes. But too over the top. And the show makes the darling Zooey Deschanel almost unlikeable.

The supporting cast doesn’t help either. Mainly stereotyped characters, Jess’ roommates include the manly personal trainer, the arrogant business executive and the more sensitive bartender. (Side note: All bets on the bartender as Jess’s potential hookup before the end of the season.) They’re one-note characters and act only as foilsto Jess, whose girly charm starkly contrasts the machismo personalities of her roommates. If one reads the clichés right, she’ll change their outlook on women.

But the show’s biggest fault lies in its writing, which relies mostly on ‘you-see-what-I-did-there’ jokes. How it works: a character does something humorous, offbeat or odd. Then, another character will say, ‘Did you just do something humorous, offbeat or odd?’ For example, in the scene in which Jess doesn’t know what ‘motor boating’ means, a character actually says, ‘I don’t think she knows what ‘motor boating’ means.’

There is nothing more annoying than writers who seem to imply that their audience is too stupid to get a joke. Shows don’t need to say, ‘This is really funny. You should be laughing now.’ We know what’s funny, and this, ‘New Girl,’ is not.

To be fair, ‘New Girl’ is a status quo comedy. A filler, if you will, that just happens to have the charms of a very likeable star in Zooey Deschanel, but even she can’t save this show.

jswucher@syr.edu

Published on September 11, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jeff: jswucher@syr.edu