Full Season Pickup

With last week's airing of New Girl picking up 4.5/11 in 18-49, FOX ordered an additional 11 episodes to make New Girl the first new series to fill out its season to a full 24 episodes. This past week's episode continued that trend with New Girl leading Tuesday night for 18-49 with a 4.3. New Girl is quickly looking to be one of the best performing sitcom premieres of the Fall.

For those of you who missed it, in this week's episode Nick brings Jess to a wedding, because he suspects that he will run into an ex-girlfriend there, but Jess plays the part a bit too well. Likewise, Winston is enlisted as an usher and takes his role seriously, as well. Meanwhile, Schmidt is torn between two women at the wedding. You can see this episode on FOX.com now.

Finally, while it's looking like New Girl is getting settled in for a permanent stay on FOX, the network has begun reshuffling its schedule to accommodate the end of the Major League Baseball season. Next week's episode of New Girl will air Wednesday, October 12 at 9:30 PM instead of 9 so that MLB Playoffs can air through most of Tuesday's primetime hours. The following episode will move back to Tuesday, but still at 9:30 instead of 9.

Week 1 Results

With the first week of premieres now behind us, the Nielsen ratings are in!  With a 4.8/12 share among ages 18-49, New Girl took first place among Tuesday's primetime lineup.  10.28 million viewers tuned in to see New Girl, an excellent performance for a new comedy, but was easily "out watched" by two of the NCIS franchise, Dancing With the Stars, and CBS' premiere of Unforgettable.

Nevertheless, New Girl seems to have had no trouble finding an audience and I'm looking forward to this upcoming week's episode and the introduction of Winston as Coach's replacement.

It’s Jess!

FOX’s new comedy line-up seems poised to compete well with this season’s new network comedy offerings.  Personally, I was not entirely surprised FOX is bringing this quirky comedy to the air.  ABC has had success with Modern Family for a few years, and CBS has ridden a long wave of excellent ratings with Two and a Half Men, as well as The Big Bang Theory.  Even NBC has done well with 30 Rock and The Office.  Thus, New Girl seems to be a good fit for the only network lacking a traditional situational comedy with a strong following.

Zooey Deschanel plays Jess Day, a slightly-awkward, but charming girl who recently went through a sudden break-up and now finds herself trying to get back on her feet.  In need to a new place to live, she meets with a group of guys looking for a roommate from an ad in Craigslist.  The show follows the four as they live and learn about themselves and each other.  FOX’s promotions for the show include some of the quirky behaviors and traits of Jess and her interactions with her new roommates.   These clips include several key interactions from the pilot, character traits like Jess’ near-constant singing to herself, and some out-of-episode content, such as Jess explaining her difficulty in choosing a new ringtone.  As characters, much remains to be seen about the three roommates, Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Coach (Damon Wayans, Jr., who will be replaced after the pilot episode), and Nick (Jake Johnson) before the pilot airs.

I’m looking forward to seeing the direction FOX takes this comedy, as it seems to have a lot of potential.  If the writing is as well-done as the acting we’ve seen so far, New Girl will easily find a place in TV viewers’ primetime “watch-list.”

New Girl will be premiering directly after Glee, on Tuesday at 9 PM.

New Girl–First Look Trailer