If you read enough reviews of new TV shows, you start to see broad narratives develop as to why a show will succeed or fail. This isn't surprising, as mass media loves nothing more than adopting an already-developed narrative over something original. In the case of New Girl, though, the narrative is dead on.
The amount to which you love or hate this show will correlate exactly with how much you love or hate Zooey Deschanel.
But first, the set-up: a bohemian/free spirited/whatever adjective best describes Zooey Deschanel woman named Jess catches her boyfriend cheating on her, leading her to move out and find new lodgings with three (or four) men, who aren't that good with women to begin with, never mind the strange, weepy mess they've just taken on. The guys help Jess get back on her feet while she helps them... make rent, I suppose. Jess also has a model best friend (literally), whose main purpose here seems to be as translator between Jess and the guys.
So, Zooey. She plays Jess in the sort of charmingly quirky (or, as I've seen the role described, "adorkable") that doesn't exist in real life, but works on TV as a refreshing break from how women are usually portrayed in sitcoms. And it's a good thing that it's a sitcom, as I think it'd be hard to take Jess for more than 30 minutes in a sitting. Suffice it to say I'm on the fence about Zooey's adorkability, at least in this case.
The roommates are the sort of clueless men who, left to their own devices, would be on an ABC sitcom that gets cancelled before Thanksgiving. There's Schmidt, one of those "bro" guys who seems to put half of his take home pay into a "Douchebag Jar" and who, not surprisingly, has a highly inflated sense of self. Then there's Nick, a bartender who can't get over his last break up but at least acts rationally otherwise, making him the most likely roommate to fall in love with Jess whenever ratings demand that happen. Winston, a former pro basketball player (in Latvia), rounds out the group as the guy who is trying to figure out just what the hell happened while he was gone.
(There is also another character, Coach, who may or may not be a roommate, thought he was but he's apparently only in a couple of episodes. He owns a gym that also appears to be the location of the apartment.)
I know it'd be hard to have this show without the guy roommates - that being the whole point of the show, the guys and Jess trying to sort each other out - but they drag down the show. I'm especially not fond of Schmidt, who I think they're trying to make into some iconic supporting character, and trying too hard.
Overall it's not a bad show, but I'm not feeling compelled to watch regularly, which I guess tracks with the whole narrative I started with.
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