In addition to my coverage of The Walking Dead, Sleepy Hollow, and the occasional song of the day (Thursdays), I will be covering New Girl on Fox – and that makes me happy. New Girl holds a special place in my heart because A, Zooey Deschanel, B, the show has a talent for making the plots seem incredibly extravagant yet grounded. The messiness of relationships (friendships, significant others, etc…) being the focus of the story has the ability to play out without actually subcuming to the everyday mundane habits of actual human beings. In some ways, New Girl is a lot like How I Met Your Mother: sure, each show uses it’s own story telling technique and character drives, but helping the audience relate to everyday problems through grandiose plots is where the two sitcoms run parallel. I like “Keaton” because it displayed the lengths that people go to protect and help their friends, and it used Mchael Keaton to do so.

New Girl holds the ability to create such a fantastical reality where I can relate to emotional issues, it’s lovely. If I could connect with Schmidt by saying that I’ve been in communication with a celebrity whenever I’m down, that’d be weird. However, I have had a best friend to to great lengths to pick up my spirits when I’ve been dumped. Ultimately, Nick becomes a more relatable character because I like to think that whenever I, as a close friend to someone who is going through a tough time, try and cheer that friend up, a process must be followed. I don’t sit in front of a computer wearing a duct tape Batman mask, but it’s pretty damn close.

The goal of a sitcom is to relate to the human condition through grandiose situation, and there are hundreds of sitcoms in existence (and I’m just talking about the ones that have seen the light of broadcast). What sets New Girl away from the hundreds of other sitcoms out there (especially the ones on air now) is the ability to control the story through the focus of the few main characters that are present. When it came to shows like Friends or Wings, there were too many main characters that needed to remain in grand plot – clearly Friends did a great job at managing the plots of the many characters, but New Girl doesn’t need to focus on so many plots. “Keaton” shows how the fewer sub plots of other characters, the better. The show is able to dive in to the complex relationships through characters more deeply, because the writers don’t have to waste time writing other characters in a sub plot.

Like I said, “Keaton” was a good episode; I could dive in to every funny scene that occurred, but I’d rather focus on other bits of the show. If I had to rate “Keaton” on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being street level and 10 being that delux apartment in the sky, I’ll give “Keaton” a 7 with high ceilings, plenty of floor space, and a skyline view that allows you to hit golf balls out your window.

Tune in next week when I try to throw in a Firefly comparison. But in a good way.