It's pretty rare for me to watch a show all the way through to it's end, especially if it lasts more than, say, five seasons. Something usually happens to make the show worse. Sometimes original characters leave the show, such as on The Office (though I did eventually go back and watch the episodes after Steve Carell left, and some pretty important stuff happens to the other characters and some new characters are introduced that are actually pretty funny). Sometimes the plot becomes contrived in order to keep the premise intact; I'm thinking of Glee and how the kids continually went back to being outcasts no matter how successful the glee club was, and how Sue Sylvester would continually go back to being an over-the-top villain even after it seemed she had forged a bond with the kids or with Mr. Schuester. Other times, the plot moves too far from the original premise and basically becomes a completely different show (didn't the last season of Scrubs involve a couple of the main characters teaching in a medical school or something? I don't know; as I said, I don't usually stick around for stuff like that). Still OTHER times, shows that occasionally employed slapstick humor start relying on that too much for lack of other ideas (Perfect Strangers, Full House, etc.), or a popular minor character who was funny in small doses becomes the focal point (Urkel on Family Matters). I've realized that all of the shows that I've mentioned are comedies; perhaps comedic premises are hard to sustain over time, or what's funny for awhile isn't funny forever.
Rewatching New Girl, I would argue that it actually got better as it went along. In the first few episodes, it seemed like the characters were reduced to their broadest personality traits or character types. Jess was pretty yet goofy, awkward, and quirky. Cece was her hot model friend. Nick was a lazy, angry underachiever. Winston didn't come in until the second episode, and Schmidt was always kind of his own thing. Over the show's seven seasons, though, their characters develop beyond broad types; they mature and actually get the things they have been working towards the whole time, both personally and professionally. It's a delight to watch it happen.
I was planning to write just ONE blog entry about my thoughts on the rewatch as a whole, but I realized it was going to get really long and take literally hours to write, so I'm going to do this in stages. Today, I'd like to talk about Schmidt and Cece.
In the first few seasons, Schmidt and Cece's relationship is actually pretty frustrating. At first, they're hooking up; Schmidt wants more, but Cece acts ashamed of him and you almost feel bad for him. Then they get together for real, but his insecurities get in the way. Then he's a jerk and tries to sabotage her other relationships, including her arranged marriage to Shivrang. Then he finds himself in the awkward position of having the opportunity to date EITHER Cece or his college girlfriend, Elizabeth, and he...doesn't choose. He dates both and just doesn't tell the other. It's awful. But then something really nice and unexpected happens, which is that they develop a real friendship, realize that they are basically each other's favorite people, and they get together for good. Once they realize they're both all-in, they don't waste time. They get engaged at the end of Season Four and married at the end of Season Five; she discovers (or rather, everyone accidentally finds out before she does) that she is pregnant at the end of Season Six, and Season Seven flashes forward to the two of them with an adorable three-year-old daughter named Ruth.
This is maybe the best I've ever seen a show handle the addition of a kid. Granted, she was only around for a season, but I feel like on a lot of shows either you just don't really see the kid that much, or the kid totally takes over. In this case, Ruth is worked into the story in a way that makes sense, but doesn't overpower the show. First of all, Schmidt becomes a stay-at-home dad, which might seem odd given how career-focused his character always was, but actually makes A LOT of sense when you think about it. He was always the caretaker of the group-- the one whose name was on the lease of the loft; the one who covered the bills if any of the rest of them were short on cash; the one who cleaned and/or made the rest of them clean. The other roommates call him the "group mom" at one point, and they really do kind of have that dynamic-- they don't always appreciate or even really notice all that he does for them, but things fall apart when he stops. It TOTALLY makes sense that he would put a ton of effort into throwing a special third birthday party for Ruth, that he would learn to do "special braids" for her, and that he would keep a rigorous schedule for her while still being fun and loving. Hats off for making this happen on a sitcom without making either Schmidt or Cece the butt of a joke for it; this is just what works for them, and fits with what we know of both of them as characters.
Along those lines, I feel like the show dealt with Cece and Schmidt's transition to married life and parenthood a lot more smoothly than a lot of shows do, and I feel like the way that they did this was by having certain tensions that this causes between them and their friends be present in a realistic way, but not that big of a deal or handled in a heavy-handed way. There is an episode, for example, where Cece and Schmidt move into their first house; their friends keep busting in on them at inappropriate moments, either for advice or just stumbling in drunkenly. Both Cece and Schmidt are exasperated by this, but it's framed more as an "oh my God, it's way too easy to break into our house" issue rather than a "we need to sit down and have a Serious Conversation About Boundaries" issue. Sometimes your circumstances change and your friends don't catch on right away. It's something to deal with, but doesn't have to be a whole big thing. I think that's pretty realistic.
Also along those lines, there is a kind of cute tension between Nick and Ruth. In one episode, Nick gets frustrated because he's trying to get Schmidt's help with a career problem, only Schmidt is exhausted because Ruth isn't sleeping. Nick says something like, "You always loved helping me fix my life before SHE came along!" Ruth just grins at him and gives him two thumbs up. Later, Nick tells Ruth something like, "You know, I was your dad's special little girl before you came along." She just looks at him like, "Okay, you weirdo." I feel like on a worse show, this would have been the focus of an entire episode that would have ended with the two of them having a big, heartfelt conversation. Instead, it's just something that's kind of there-- Nick is a little put-out that his friend doesn't have as much time for him anymore now that he has a kid, but it just is what it is. Part of life, but not that big of a deal.
Basically, even though Cece and Schmidt are ostensibly secondary characters to Nick and Jess, they wind up being the two that you really root for, and once they are on the same page, they're a really great couple. Their relationship was probably my favorite part of the show.
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