‘New Girl’ premiere review: Has Fox overdosed you on Zooey Deschanel already?

Watching the debut of New Girl, you may have been thinking, “I’ve heard these jokes before.” Oh, right: It was in the 21,875 commercials Fox offered in promoting the show, revealing punchline after punchline. Is there such a thing as too much promotion — specifically, promos that give away the best gags? Only the ratings will tell, but even if you hadn’t already downloaded it on iTunes or watched it on Hulu, I’ll bet a lot of you thought you’d seen much of this half hour well before it aired.

Not that Zooey Deschanel can or should be blamed for any of this.

She and show creator Liz Meriwether are clearly trying something different: a portrait of an eccentric as the lively center of a series. In another, less imaginative show, Deschanel’s Jess would be the wacky sidekick, the comedy-boosting help for the glammier star of the sitcom. Meriwether and Deschanel have moved that kind of person — smart, quick, cheerfully silly, unafraid to make a goofball of herself — front and center.

Read more at http://watching-tv.ew.com/2011/09/20/new-girl-zooey-deschanel/