A quick review of tonight’s “New Girl” coming up just as soon as I tell you my whole plan like a Bond villain…
While “New Girl” has had some expected creative ups and downs early in its first season, there have only been two episodes that I felt flat-out didn’t work: “Naked,” and now “Bad in Bed.” Is it a coincidence that those are the two episodes dealing with Jess’ various sexual neuroses? I don’t think so, though at least “Bad in Bed” did a better job of framing them (Jess is coming out of a long-term relationship where she had lots of sex but fell into a rut) than “Naked” (where she mainly acted like a 10-year-old). But I still think the “New Girl” writers find the idea of Zooey Deschanel being sexually inept much funnier than I do – or maybe it’s part of the larger issue that they think Jess being stupid is funnier than it is. The show tends to work best when she’s strange but not an imbecile, and she comes across as particularly dumb in both of these episodes, unfortunately, even if there are brief amusing moments like Jess pantomiming her four “moves” from her last relationship.
And the subplots were very weak. The show has dealt briefly with Schmidt’s female-dominated workplace in the past, but not to great success, and it wasn’t any funnier at greater length. And Nick’s fear of the barbershop barely even qualified as a joke, though seeing him with that hi-top fade worked well when Jess used it as an excuse to ignore his advice and focus on Winston.
What did everybody else think?