"New Girl" Premiere SnapCap: Cuteness Overload

Reviewing comedy pilots is the weirdest, because with some very rare exceptions — The Cosby Show, Friends, Arrested Development, Party Down — it's almost impossible to get a feel for how great (or horrific!) a show is going to be in 22 minutes. The episode has to to introduce its characters, tell us a story about them that compels us to come back for more, and make us laugh in an out loud kind of way.

New Girl didn't fully succeed in any of those areas.

Fox's marketing campaign was essentially, "Is Zooey Deschanel your own personal manic pixie dream girl? Well, wait'll you get a load of this!" And the pilot is more of the same. I mean, yes, there is some story: In the throes of trying to fulfill his wish of boning a stripper, Jess catches her boyfriend cheating on her, so she moves in with three dudes to make a fresh start. But the only engaging thing about the plot is that it gives us license to watch Deschanel sing and dance and dork her way around for half an hour.

New Girl, like most comedy pilots, felt less like a production and more like an audition — luckily, Zooey Deschanel is on my callback list.

AFTERELTON BAIT

Excepting Schmidt (Max Greenfield) ripping off his shirt every seven seconds — seriously, what is up with that this premiere week? — New Girl didn't have much in the way of beefcake or gay bait. In fact, I don't feel like I know anything at all about any of Jess' roommates, which pisses me off a little bit, if you want to know the truth. If there's not enough characterization to fill-out even one straight dude, there's certainly not enough characterization to fill-out three of them. New Girl really missed an opportunity by not having one of Jess' roommates be gay. It would have made the story so much fuller and more fun. Not to mention more AfterElton.com bait-ier.

FEELINGS, FEELINGS, FEELINGS

If a comedy pilot makes you feel mild curiosity, it has done it's job — especially if it's slated to air right after the most popular show in the known universe. Fox just wants you to keep your TV on. I chuckled a little at New Girl, but that's pretty much the only feeling I felt. That and mild annoyance about the fact that I'm meant to find Zooey Deschanel undatable.

CUTE OVERLOAD

And here we arrive at New Girl's power rating! Zooey Deschanel is generally considered to be The Most Adorable, because Zooey Deschanel is, in actual fact, The Most Adorable. Jess is a variation of every character Zooey s ever played, all of which seem like a variation of the person she is in real life. Apparently, I'm supposed to find it pathetic that she saunters up to a guy at a bar and says, "How's it going, sailor?" But I find it endearing. Like the "That's Jess!" ditties she makes up on the spot, and the fact that she wanted to go out on a date in high heels and overalls. Also, the part where she asked for more free bread when she was being stood up for dinner. But the good kind of free bread. Not the "health bread."

HUMOR

New Girl didn't land a lot of jokes in the pilot, but it has potential. The cutaways made for some surprise laughs — especially a tweenage Jess singing Joan Osborne's "What If God Was One of Us" at a middle school party — and I've got to believe once they sort out the single-camera pacing, we're going to get some more of those giggles. My favorite line of the night was, "I like your glasses." "Thanks. They help me see."

I want to laugh with Jess, not scowl while her roommates laugh at her. The second thing will be a dealbreaker for me.