well, i finished new girl

apr 15 2025, /diary /media

and boy do i have thoughts. disclaimer: this article is largely unedited unfinished and barely coherent because i wrote it on maybe 6 good hours of sleep in 2 days. ill be back to fix it now coherent as of 4/16/25.

i don’t think i’ve written about television at length before but it’s pretty clear if you take a gander at my media page and my site in general that i am a big tv guy. here’s my attempt at articulating my love for it before launching into a longwinded reflection on new girl and sitcoms by and large ^_^

tv & me

my tv watching stats

tv is a pillar of my life. i think that when i say this or talk about the importance of tv in general, people don’t take me very seriously. as a child i was under the impression that tv was mostly slop consumed by glassy-eyed people but in my now-older opinion it is highly underrated as an artistic medium/mode of storytelling. i imagine i’m an outlier on this issue as i’m also a vehement hater of movies as a format and therefore cannot be objective in any conceivable way, but i digress. as martha wells puts it:

books, but also tv and star wars had probably saved my life as a kid, but that wasn't the narrative people wanted to hear. (it's cool if literature saves your life; if literature got a major assist from land of the giants and the saturday afternoon godzilla movie, not so much.)

in the media pecking order of "good" to "slop," tv usually falls dead last. i'm not sure why this (to me) seems to be the general sentiment towards it, but i resent it. i know that those of us who inhabit digital spaces are less prone to write it off as a medium because fandom is a much more tv-oriented activity, but there are people who definitely turn their noses up at tv. but that's okay because i turn my nose up at movies.

just to cut the “why don't you like movies?” question off at the pass: to put it simply, i don’t really want to only inhabit a story for two hours. movies are harder for me to rewatch a million times and therefore more difficult for me to appreciate (i know this doesn't make sense its just my reality).1 they feel both endless and too short at the same time.

none of my opinions on movies are actually based in rationality they’re more just a byproduct of my love of tv and brain so please don’t take it personally if you are a cinephile. i really do not care i’m just probably never going to watch the movie you recommend me unless you remind me a million times. if i am watching a movie it’s because i was forced to (usually new movies) or because someone caved and let me choose a movie i’ve seen before to watch. or i’ve wandered into my mother’s general vicinity while she’s watching something and decided to stick around and see how it ends (rare).

whatever my feelings about movies, the point of this article is that i love television more than i love life itself. i watch tv to self regulate and when im sad and when im happy and all of the time. i spend like 1/4 of my life watching or thinking about tv. if they studied my tv habits in a lab i think the findings would be fascinating. my weeks are structured around which episodes of which shows are airing when and i track them fastidiously. at the height of the spring/fall airing seasons i'm watching 5 or 6 shows at the same time. i love that new seasons airing gives me something to look forward to, it's one of the best feelings. tv and sitcoms especially have historically been a kind of surrogate for my lack of real friends, and it still kind of is, but i've also had the opportunity to make a lot of new friends or at least strengthen relationships through tv.

similar to how i use my art to connect with people, i also weaponize (affectionately) tv in an effort to form relationships. i've baited a myriad of people into talking about tv with me to get to know them better, from people i work with to lawyers and basketball coaches at a fancy dinner. i convince my friends to watch shows i think they'll like with me and we get to bond over them. this tactic began in middle school when i watched bbc sherlock with my best friend and together we lost our minds over it. and now, i get to have a weekly conversation with people i know about shows we're both keeping up with. it's magical and i'm so grateful. thank you tv my best friend tv.

now, you may scoff when i list watching tv in my hobbies, but let me assure you that to me, tv watching is not a passive activity. it is a sport and it is very involved, you guys are just doing it wrong. from my persepective in bonworld it seems like most people just doesn’t take tv as a medium very seriously but i watch tv like how cinephiles watch movies and i’m probably just as obnoxious about tv as the most obnoxious filmbro you’ve met.

here’s my tv watching manifesto:

  1. watch with a critical eye even (especially) if it’s a show that’s written off by 90% of watchers. i watch tv that is not necessarily in my age bracket or with really any redeeming writing/acting choices but that i still love (diary of a future president) and the reason i can defend my love of these shows is because i don’t just like anything blindly.
  2. watch with a critical eye even (especially) if it’s a show that is “prestige” or lauded. i like plenty of popular shows but it’s always good to examine what about them is making them popular in the moment. this is pertinent re: my recent watch of adolescence. prestige tv should be under scrutiny at all times.
  3. think about tv when you arent watching tv. i like to walk around and reflect on my shows. this might just be the autism though. i also love to yap about my shows to anyone who will listen. get a tvbuddy! tv is the best parallel play!
  4. remember that tv is just as deserving to be dissected for themes/motifs/intent/whatever as movies and books (typically considered to be “better” forms of media).

sitcoms i love u

that’s about as coherent as i can get about my friend tv so let’s move on. I LOVE SITCOMS! here are my sitcom credentials i've watched 25 of them in full (and maybe half of them multiple times) with the exception of some of the more popular early sitcoms because i have hate in my heart and i don’t understand the humor (see the office and friends. they are not my friends), i'm a fan of most sitcoms. they're obviously a staple of the medium and are a very popular genre of television. they’re funny and easy to watch and that’s beautiful! i've watched a pretty large chunk of the popular sitcoms that have come out since the late 90's, but my quest continues! i'll do a little research post soon on the history of sitcoms because i have a bone to pick with the office for being racist homophobic slop and somehow still considered the standard for the sitcom dear lord.

i love the sitcom for its infinite variability in setting and humor but rigid storytelling parameters. with a few notable exceptions and depending on the setting (work vs family) you can easily understand the trajectory of a sitcom based on just a few episodes. they're usually ensemble casts with two primary characters that will inevitably have a love story. there WILL be shenanigoogles.2 there WILL be antics. and there WILL be heartfelt tender moments and moralizing. there's a case to made that sitcoms engender the socialcultural zeitgeist and norms of the moment that they come out in and i think that's fascinating. it's definitely a spectrum though. you can compare the randomly racist humor of modern family (2009-2019) to the relatively more progressive brooklyn nine-nine (2013-2020) and see how the baseline of "acceptable" humor evolves. then of course there are statistical abberations like community (2009-2015), which i am fond of but undeniably toes the line of "acceptable" humor, swinging violently between just being straight up weird about hot-topic issues and rooting episodes in the least plausible and therefore less objectionable situations because they're just ridiculous. or, similarly, the relatively surprising progressiveness of malcolm in the middle (2000-2006), which is similarly ungrounded in our reality but still manages to engage social issues with tact.

if we dig a little deeper into my brain i think i am drawn to casual workplace/family comedy because it’s a very safe way to engage with social situations without having to actually go through the horrors of talking to people. i believe i owe a lot of my social skills and humor to the extensive amount of time i’ve spent watching sitcoms. as a teenager i would spout quotes and scenes from my shows that were only really pertinent like 20% of the time. i still do but to a lesser degree because i've learned how to be silly without leaning on jokes i’ve memorized. i love that i’ve gotten to know a few people with similarly boundless knowledge when it comes to tv though (shoutout to [] who can cite episodes and actors of modern family probably more adeptly than i can).

i'm pretty much clueless if you're trying to cite a tiktok or other mainstream piece of internet humor to me but i can retrieve very specific television trivia from the depths of my mind at will!

let's talk about newgirl

new girl (2011-2018) was notable to me because of the lack of the typical sitcom romance trajectory (for the primary two characters ie nick and jess). it was pretty glaring! spoilers for the entire show from here on out, untagged because i'll basically exclusively be talking about them lol. nick and jess' arc was so unbelievably drawn out and simultaneously excruciatingly frustrating and incredibly endearing. i struggle to come up with a conclusive opinion on the way their relationship was handled because i feel very strongly that while not perfectly excuted, the writers managed to keep their story engaging for like 80% of the time. and they pulled off the will they/won't they not once but TWICE. which is just unbelievable.

slowburns are a sitcom staple, but they can be subverted by dropping the primary romance entirely (such as in community, where jeff and britta kind of(?) get together but never in a serious way #theymakeeachotherworse) or by just never really existing because the primary characters are already together (philclaire modern family, although one could argue that their relationship is slowburn better marriage). i've never seen a show seemingly fumble and yet still salvage the main relationship. i don't even know if it can be categorized under subversion i think they just didn't know what to do with nickjess. i spent all of the jess/robby arc wanting to kill myself so that's definitely points deducted for their arc. in any case, i did really enjoy their relationship and how they managed to retain their personalities at least for the first run of their relationship in s3. s7 nick was a lot less charmingly nick which can be attributed to character growth in the 3 unseen years or the fact that the season was 8 episodes long and their characters were compressed to finish the story.

great segue for me to say nick miller: perfect sitcom guy. truly obsessed with his facial range, i don't think i could come up with a character as expressive as he is off the top of my head. it's pretty impressive considering most actors when listening to people just kind of stare blankly unless cued otherwise. i have 10 million screenshots of his bug eyes and grimaces and pouty lips. who are you man. what are you doing. jake johnson is such an actor enigma to me because he really did go from skeezy roommate to skeezy ceo of adult magazine (minx, 2022-2023)(RIP MINX!).

i also really like his and jess's dynamic, they're both so goofy and quirky. nick really meets jess in weirdness in a slightly different way that i appreciate and i love how they consider each other their best friends like so true love you both. i like that no one in the show is truly the straight man (maybe cece...) because they're all a little silly. it's a spectrum of silliness though. ughh also the albama shakes songs... SHOULD WE END IT ALLLLLL. i counted two and i loved them.

nick from new girl. 'you have pepper spray?' nick from new girl. 'why didn't you use that on me?'

despite nickjess being fumbled a few times, cece and schmidt did not disappoint. no ambiguities there. they were obsessed with each other from day one and they both play off of that so perfectly. i do think that nick should get the ambiguously bi title on tvtropes3 for his relationship with schmidt though ("i was his babygirl before you came along") and russell ("he was the only man we both loved"). all the best sitcom men are ambiguously bi!

i honestly loved every character in the cast, even coach who would only pop in for a bit. they're all so overwrought and delightful. truly a joyful show! much love.

looking at you

update as of 4/17/25

well i watched this video and i have to say i agree with it. it articulated a lot of the problems i had with the show but had trouble coming up with myself. the other thing i came away with after watching it is that i need to get more into tv scholarship stat so prepare for more of these insufferable articles. it'll be good for me.

the main arguments of the video were that jess is the show's least strong character and that the episode "reagan" was when the show died. these are things i can agree with, but the points that resonated for me more was the discussion of the "death tolls" of a sitcom (so to speak), namely when characters with romantic chemistry begin to date, get married, move in together, and have kids. new girl definitely did not handle these transitions gracefully. i actually didn't mind the dynamic that nick and jess had when they got together, it felt very sincere and they didn't change very much, but i think that was also their downfall. in order for a relationship to stay interesting to an audience especially in a sitcom where so much remains static, the characters need to change. i think a good example is how in brooklyn nine nine, amy gets siller and less uptight when she and jake start dating, and jake gets more competent and mature. obviously they didn't change so much that their whole dynamic was ruined but it was enough to present them with new opportunities for gags and heartfelt moments after the romantic tension dispelled.

i think a lot of shows really struggle with these transitions anyways and sitcoms just as a genre are forced to reconcile with them because they tend to functionally only have these macro-arcs since they're episodic. every sitcom goes about it in a different and more or less effective way. new girl was not one to surpass expectations, unfortunately. i think superstore suffered in a similar way, where the jonah/amy arc was so drawn out and then ultimately treated like no big deal it ended up being underwhelming. you can't just go surprise they're in a relationship now! that's not how it works.

i like malcolm in the middle as a sitcom because it doesn't really have to deal with those changes in status quo as much. the fact that we get the 7 years of middle and high school pretty much guaranteed that nothing could be so dramatically changed that the tone of the show would shift. yes there were babies and deaths and whatever but nothing ever changed the contexts of the core relationships or the environment in which they lived. except for francis, i guess, but he was an outlier and his zany, lethal hijinks almost always lent themselves to the A plots.

my nick miller gallery (work in progress)

my favorite scenes & episodes

thank you for your attention. i'll be back to add more periodically.

1 i love venom so much but i can only rewatch that movie so many times before i memorize every part of it (although that doesn't stop me from rewatching it 3 times consecutively). i wish it were a 5 season tv show so i could forget an episode and go back and enjoy it all over again. this is the only way i know how to articulate this. ^

2 thank you jake peralta b99 for shenanigoogles. ^

3 tvtropes page ^

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