New Girl: "First Date"

Well, that was annoying. From the very first episode, we kinda knew that Jess and Nick would eventually get together. We also knew that the writers would most likely capitalize on this chemistry and draw it out for as long as possible. We get it. Remember Friends? Ross and Rachel? It dragged on for 10 seasons! But what made it tolerable, especially in the early seasons, was that there were other things going on to other characters. Monica and Chandler got married, Phoebe met the love of her life and Joey was, well, Joey. But there was enough material to distract us from the whole Rachel and Ross thing.

But with New Girl, we only have Jess as the central character, and so whatever happens to her takes center stage. You can't just put her story on the side lines while focusing on the other characters. Thus, if you draw out a particular plot line for too long, the tendency is for the show to not just be boring, but particularly annoying.

Take their latest episode. This is an obvious case of the writers milking this whole Jess-Nick thing. They've already kissed twice, heck, Nick has already touched Jess's boobs twice. And yet they're still not together. They've essentially talked about they're attraction to each other and have broken up with their respective partners. The only thing standing in the way of these two getting together is the writing. And money, of course.

The show also suffers from having sidelined very interesting characters such as Cece. She only appears whenever Jess needs her or when they need to do something with Schmidt. Even Winston, one of Jess's roomates, has often been forgotten.

What the hell was that date/non-date all about? It was a little funny when Nick met Jess all dressed up while she might as well be wearing her PJs. When they realized that they were on the date and started flirting with each other while getting drunk and still nothing happened, it just became annoying. At least with Ross and Rachel, once they broke up with their partners, they immediately got together. Or at least had some valid reasons to fight about and not be together for a while. With Nick and Jess, there's just a lot of non-reasons for them to not be together at this point.

Hopefully, things finally start making sense in this show next week. Until then!