Hacker Cinema
New Girl
2011 · TV series · 22 min episodes · 7 seasons
Created by Elizabeth Meriwether
Jessica Day is an offbeat and adorable girl in her late 20s who, after a bad breakup, moves in with three single guys. Goofy, positive, vulnerable and honest to a fault, Jess has faith in people, even when she shouldn't. Although she's dorky and awkward, she's comfortable in her own skin. More prone to friendships with women, she's not used to hanging with the boys—especially at home.
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18 comments on Hacker News
I can't argue that I really enjoy music as my working background noise. Something else unique is I enjoy listening to TV shows, or more, "noise". I usually put on a simple TV show I've seen before that doesn't need a lot of attention (Friends, the Office, New Girl, Big Bang Theory), that creates that background noise. It's like white noise to me :)
> On the other hand, "What is Taylor Swift known for?" the answers "standup comedy", "comedian", and "comedy actress" are semantically similar but represent hallucinations.
Taylor Swift has appeared multiple times on SNL, both as a host and as a surprise guest, beyond being a musical performer[0]. Generally, your point is correct, but she has appeared on the most famous American television show for sketch comedy, making jokes. One can argue whether she was funny or not in her appearances, but she has performed as a comedian, per se.
Though she hasn't done a full-on comedy show, she has appeared in comedies in many credits (often as herself).[1] For example she appeared as "Elaine" in a single episode of The New Girl [2x25, "Elaine's Big Day," 2013][2]. She also appeared as Liz Meekins in "Amsterdam" [2022], a black comedy, during which her character is murdered.[3]
It'd be interesting if there's such a thing as a negatory hallucination, or, more correctly, an amnesia — the erasure of truth that the AI (for whatever reason) would ignore or discount.
[0] https://www.billboard.com/lists/taylor-swift-saturday-night-live-appearances-timeline/
[1] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2357847/
[2] https://newgirl.fandom.com/wiki/Elaine
[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10304142/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_7_act
It’s a comedy trope. Seinfeld is probably most famous for the formula with back-references throughout the series. Arrested Development dabbled in it, and Community took it to the extreme of whole story arcs. Brooklyn 99 and New Girl revel in it. A less comedy-specific example, Buffy, created a role for the throw away character (Spike) because he was so well received, then went on to do several more episodes along a similar theme (Zeppo, the one about Jonathan being a superhero, the musical, come to mind).
Movies are less susceptible to being described as formulaic, but an iconic movie, The Big Lebowski, could reasonably be summarized this way (albeit the series is serialized into one piece). Coffee and Cigarettes doesn’t satisfy the “nobodies” in the literal sense, but it’s almost entirely this formula.
I’m just citing examples I can think of, I haven’t watched most of what people have watched. And I don’t mean in any way to dismiss the actual work, or the concept, or your finding novelty in it. It’s a really cool device for storytelling, but it’s definitely not a unique device.
I'm not sure about that, given it was used in New Girl, a Fox tv series. The comments thanking new girl for how the solver knew the word was such a refreshing change from "omg NYT ruined it"
...I also learned it was used in that classic millennial childhood game Oregon Trail (because you can caulk the wagon to cross the river)
We recently held a TV Writers Room workshop with these guys: https://andthenwriters.com/ We chose the show 'New Girl', split into teams, and then went into Zoom breakout rooms to work on the basis of an episode (they lead each room). Then we got back together, each team pitched their episode, and we held a vote for the winning team. It was a lot of fun and really brought the team togither!
There's some really good research in this article and then some really poorly researched topics and it seems like the entire thing was written with an agenda to please an anti-millenial audience. Specifically, an agenda to prove that millenials are given way more than previous generations (especially boomers) with really poor research and a really shaky narrative.
This one part shows it pretty clearly:
>n the television show “Thirtysomething,” which aired from 1987 to 1991, the all-white cast of characters seemed to be economically emancipated from their parents, who rarely factored into the story lines. Today’s series about 30-somethings portray a decade that seems far less adult, at least by traditional standards. (Think “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” or “New Girl.”)
That first link is pretty damning. You're right, the older images are almost all of hard news.
Here are some of the stories I see on BBC News currently:
- N Korea threatens to cancel Trump summit
- Italy's populists plan to defy EU rules
- Body clock linked to mood disorders
- Controversial Russia-Crimea bridge opens
- Row over World Cup flirting manual
- New Girl bids bittersweet farewell
- Bank chief sorry for menopausal gaffe
- Anne Frank's dirty jokes uncovered
- Meghan's dad may miss wedding over surgery
- Celebrating mixed race identity
- Why is Spanish ham so expensive?
- Ghana shoe seller takes on ex-dictator
I'd say that the vast majority of these are lightweight human interest stories, several of them are just ID politics masquerading as news and some are both. Why is stuff about TV show New Girl on the BBC News front page?
The story about the "menopausal" gaffe turns out to be that a Bank of England governor described some economies as "menopausal, past their peak, and no longer so potent". This apparently is a gaffe worthy of being in the business news section. It's not clear to me why it's even a gaffe to begin with. Do feminists now argue the menopause isn't a biological event at all? Apparently they do, according to some random economics professor at some random university (the BBC loves quoting academics) - "It conveys a rather derogatory view of women. I've never thought of the menopause as not productive".
It's really pretty trashy. Very different to how it once was.
While I love RottenTomatoes for Movies, I find it abysmal for TV Shows. Here are some shows with a >90% score:
- Almost all seasons of Supernatural
- Seasons 3 & 4 of Veep
- Seasons 4, 5 & 7 of New Girl
- Season 2 of The Flash
- Season 2-4 of Arrow
Now I'm not saying that those shows are all shit (tho they are certainly not in my ballpark), but I doubt anyone thinks of them as 100% shows, in the same sense that Moonlight is a 98% movie.
The problem comes with few reviews (which is also a thing with more niche-y movies), which is probably amplified in later seasons, where reviewers who don't like it stopped watching.
It's only 7 recent shows [0]. Also, consider Netflix and Hulu aren't competitors. They offer different content, mostly. Hulu has more recent and a far larger back catalog of popular television shows. Netflix has more older movies, original content, and a sprinkling of older television shows.
I'm not defending Hulu, I don't have a subscription. Consider that it's a fraction of the price of cable which has commercials, even with the limited commercials for $11.99, it's quite the bargain. It's on demand too and supported by just about every recent smart TV or streaming device.
> While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
[0] https://help.hulu.com/en-us/included-in-no-commercials-plan
Even with the upcharge there are simply less commercials on hulu, not zero. So says their FAQ - https://help.hulu.com/s/article/included-in-no-commercials-plan?language=en_US
A small number of shows are not included in our No Commercials Add-on. You can still watch these shows, however, they will play with a short commercial before and after each episode.
While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
And then on top of that it's a wasteland content-wise as you stated.
> One thing that is certain is that there are more commercials now. If you watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory sans commercials, you will notice that it is only 17 minutes long! And that includes the 60 second intro. So 13 minutes of commercials for 16 minutes of actual content. No chance I'll be going back to regular TV.
I get my episodes of BBT from iTunes. You’re correct that BBT episodes are shorter than most other mainstream shows (at least in my own library). They are often only about 18-19m, other episodes reach 21-22m as well. I don’t see any below 18m in the past four seasons and stopped searching beyond that. Alternatively, most of the half-hour shows I watch are consistently about 20-21m, so BBT is definitely providing less content overall.
As for the assertion of 1m intros with BBT, that's 3x longer than reality. I scripted simple controls for controlling iTunes via my phone so that I wouldn’t need to reach for my kbd or trackpad. I set the FWD time to 30 seconds and the BACK time to 10 seconds. Jumping ahead by 30s is appropriate for most shows that I watch, whereas BBT requires me to also jump back by 10s (it has a 20s intro).
Few sitcoms still have 1m or longer intros. New Girl is about 5s, down from around 30s when it started. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia dropped from 1m to 30s. The Sarah Silverman Program dropped from 22s to 17s in 2010. I see the overall trend for typical broadcasts as gradually reducing intros (excluding shows on HBO, etc; those still have very long intros but also no commercials).
In case anyone was wondering, from https://help.hulu.com/articles/52427902#list
"In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with a short commercial before and after each episode with no interruptions during the episode. Specific shows that still have commercials accessible through the No Commercials plan will be noted throughout the signup, switching and playback experience. While the list of shows may change, they are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder."
It's seven shows, and even on those the ads are only at the beginning and end they don't interrupt the show. I say we cut them some slack.
“Cheers,” which ran for 11 seasons on NBC, starting in 1982, was the first great hangout show: neutralizing the depiction of class and removing the pressures of work. Life is hard enough, “Cheers” said; let’s just make TV. Ever since, television started taking it easier on us. Bill Clinton was in the White House, and the economy had improved. On “Seinfeld,” “Living Single,” “Friends,” “Ellen,” “It’s Like, You Know,” “Sex and the City,” “Girlfriends” and, much later, “Happy Endings” and “New Girl,” the commingling, childless men and women might have had jobs, but almost none had consequential careers. How many jobs did Elaine and George have on “Seinfeld”? And in how many fields? And Kramer — how was he paying to live across the hall from Jerry? Hangout shows placed friendship above family, obviating the typical economic ecosystem. Belonging to a family of friends probably means you only have to support yourself.
TV became — and still is — a medium struggling to understand “average,” “ordinary,” “normal.”
Why would you go into any of these shows expecting anything resembling reality. They are all clearly entertainment in the form of light drama and inconsequential, whitewashed sexual tension. To expect anything else is to set yourself up for failure.
Deeper shows exist - The Wire, Breaking Bad, House of Cards - but headlining TV shows are not created to address issues anymore. The shows reflect the main demographics of TV watchers, because that's what keeps them watching, and that's what generates ad revenue. So I'm not too concerned with the state of TV - it's an echo chamber for older, more conservative folk.
Well, you could say "this service has no ads" and then include ads. Hulu did. People just may not like it or respect you for it.
Hulu 'No Commercials' Plan: "A small number of shows are not included in our No Commercials plan due to streaming rights. But we’ve still made them available to you uninterrupted. They will just play with a short commercial before and after each episode. These shows are: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder. "
- they reserve the right to add to this list over time
It seems that not all shows will be commercial free, however. I understand that they must have special arrangements with those producers, but it feels very odd.
Will all shows and movies be commercial free?
In response to feedback from our viewers, we started offering a commercial-free experience on Hulu. For a small number of shows, however, we have not obtained the rights to stream commercial free and they are not included in our No Commercials plan. You can still easily access these shows with short commercial before and after each episode with no interruptions during the episode. Specific shows that still have commercials accessible through the No Commercials plan will be noted throughout the signup, switching, and playback experience. While the list of shows may change, these shows are currently: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon A Time, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, Grimm, New Girl, and How To Get Away With Murder.
I really like how New Girl handled the issue. If my memory is correct, it didn't really mention anything about their relatively large black cast, until they was explicitly highlighted this fact in one of the final episodes.
Sure. One common trope in sitcoms is one character saying "You'll never catch me doing X!", immediately smash cut to the character doing X. You've probably seen this trope performed a thousand times already. As a result, you've been trained to know how to interpret it. Scenes like this are useful for cutting through a lot of story very quickly. You no longer have to show how the character fought a losing battle and had their mind changed reluctantly.
But it's become so ubiquitous, just playing a scene like this straight is perceived as kind of hacky because of how boring it is. So you see writers start to play around with the form. One common variation is that the character themselves are jolted by the rapidity of the cut, adding a layer of meta-winkingness to the trope. Another variation is that the camera pans out after the cut, revealing a mislead and that the character is, in fact, not doing X.
Another, more concrete example from the sitcom New Girl, in what I consider to be the best episode (Cooler), there is an outstanding joke: To set the scene, Jess and Nick are room-mates, Jess is currently dating Sam & Jess and Nick have had a season long will-they/won't they simmering in the background. Jess and Nick get caught up in the loft's delightfully bizarre game, True American which results in them being forced to be locked in a room together until they kiss. Jess calls Sam in a panic and Jess and Nick sit down to have a heart to heart.
If you have Netflix, you can see there scene here, starting from 17:06: http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70196145
Just as the previous scene is reaching an emotional climax, we hear Sam banging on the door and asking if Jess is alright. Jess says it's a false alarm and Sam asks what she's doing back there. Immediate smash cut to Sam chanting "kiss, kiss, kiss" along with the rest of the roommates.
There's an incredibly amount of storytelling going on in that smash cut. We first are primed to believe, that Sam is the classic mid-second act obstacle and that we're about to enter a standard comedy of deception because we've seen that play out a million times before. By subverting our expectations That rug gets immediately pulled out from under us, showing that the central conflict of the episode is not external, it's Jess's internal struggle with liking two people. Next, it uses our knowledge of smash cuts to understand that in the intervening time, Sam's been explained the circumstances of the game by the other roommates and he's become caught up in it is now part of the mob. It also shows us that Sam does not view Nick as a romantic threat, giving us insight into the psychological state of the three main characters, and the foreshadowing that this obliviousness will come into play later.
This is incredibly dense storytelling for a 13 second scene and it typifies how New Girl is able to juggle 5 or even 6 plots in a single 22 minute episode and make it feel effortless. But only if you understand the logic motivating the direction does the story come out. Such a scene would look confusingly arbitrary to a 1950's audience because they would not be trained on the tropes and how they're either supported or subverted.
Tennis (obsession maybe), photography, reading fiction, New Girl TV show (don't judge me).