After walking in on her long-time boyfriend with another woman, schoolteacher Jess decides to move into a new apartment with three male roommates— personal trainer Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.), bartender Nick (Jake Johnson), and womanizer Schmidt (Max Greenfield). At first the guys are a bit wary of letting this crazy, emotionalwoman move in, but when Schmidt hears that her best friend Cece (Hannah Simone) is a model, he makes the executive decision to allow Jess to move in. Nick, whose girlfriend dumped him 6 months earlier, knows what Jess is going through, so the guys try to help her get back on her feet and back into the dating world. Due to casting issues, Coach is quickly replaced by previous roommate Winston (Lamorne Morris) who has returned from playing basketball in Latvia for the past two years.

Jess is a quirky, free-spirited girl, who is constantly singing—she even wrote her own “It’s Jess” theme song—and wears her heart on her sleeve. Jess seems to be inexperienced at everything—it’s amazing she’s made it through life this long. When promoting the show, FOX coined the term “adorkable” as a way to describe her, and while that term has since been over-used, it does describe her perfectly. Jess is dorky but loveable. During the first season, Jess meets Paul (Justin Long )—an equally quirky, male version of Jess, and the two start dating. The scenes between these two characters are just hilarious and almost too much to take. The “Bad in Bed” episode has one of my favorite scenes of the entire season when the pair attempts to talk dirty to one another—Paul using his Jimmy Stewart voice and Jess talking like an old-timey newswoman.

While the titular character is Jess, the real standout of the show for me is Schmidt. Schmidt is always acting like a jerk, so much so that his roommates have created a Douchebag Jar in which he must deposit money each time he acts like a douche. Schmidt is a former fat kid, and now that he’s lost the weight, he compensates with over-confidence. With some actors this could make you dislike that character. However, Max Greenfield plays Schmidt perfectly and in such a way that he’s also hilarious and you actually root for him. While he can be a douche, we also get to see the softer side of a true and loyal friend.

New Girl is one of those hangout shows, where the main characters are such great friends that you just want to hang out with them and be part of their group and have fun with them. Jess’ constant singing got on my nerves after a while, but the fun of the show and great characters quickly remedied that.

Over the course of the season, we see this group get into so many funny situations, like when Jess walks in on a naked Nick and then tries to make things even; the roommates attempting to make Thanksgiving dinner in their apartment but things go horribly (and hilariously) wrong; Schmidt discovering the reason why his towel is always damp; Jess being bullied by a student; Schmidt and Winston getting a little too competitive while playing bar trivia; and Nick discovering just how young his date is. However, my absolute favorite moment of the first season is a scene in “Tomatoes” when Schmidt is on a date with Cece’s Russian model friend and she is listing off the things she likes—he can’t understand what she is talking about and starts screaming that he has no idea what a “Mick Mouse” is.

The first season of New Girl is so much fun and keeps you laughing, no matter how many times you’ve seen the episodes. With great characters and the perfect mix of humor and heart, you can’t go wrong.

What’s Included on the DVD:

Episodes:

• All 24 episodes of Season 1 (523 min)
  
  • Disc 1: “Pilot”, “Kryptonite”, “Wedding”, “Naked”, “Cece Crashes”, “Thanksgiving”, “Bells”, “Bad Seed”
    
  • Disc 2: “The 23rd”, “The Story of the 50”, “Jess and Julia”, “The Landlord”, “Valentine’s Day”, “Bully”, “Injured”, “Control”
    
  • Disc 3: “Fancyman”, “Fancyman 2”, “Secrets”, “Normal”, “Kids”, “Tomatoes”, “Backslide”, “See Ya”
• Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1
• English SDH, Spanish, French subtitles

Extras:

• Dress Like Jess (7:43)
  Star/Producer Zooey Deschanel and Costume Designer Debra McGuire talk about Jess’ style and wardrobe on the show.
• Auditions with Lamorne (5:03)
  After Happy Endings was unexpectedly picked up for a second season, Damon Wayans Jr. was no longer available to be on New Girl, so the third roommate character needed to be rewritten and recast. This is Lamorne Morris’ Audition Reel with the rest of the main cast.
• Alternate Jokes (6:04)
  Disc 2 contains alternate versions of some of Schmidt’s one-liners as he enters the room (1:29), and disc 3 has some alternate takes of Nick’s speech behind the presidential desk and his video to future Nick (4:35).
• New Girl: Evolution of an Episode (9:24)
  Executive Producers Elizabeth Meriwether and Dave Finkel talk about the process of creating the season finale episode—from breaking the story, to writing the episode, doing the table read, filming in the desert, punching up the script on set and looking forward to the next season.
• Deleted Scenes and Extended Scenes (13:49)
  Seven scenes on disc 1 (8:02), two scenes on disc 2 (2:20) and 3 scenes on disc 3 (3:27)
• Gag Reel (8:44)
  A super-sized dose of flubbed lines, crack-ups and fun on the set.
• Sneak Peek: Ben & Kate (5:02)
  Sneak Peek at the new comedy joining New Girl on FOX’s Tuesday comedy block.
• Audio Commentary on Selected Episodes
  • “Pilot — Executive Producers Elizabeth Meriwether, Brett Baer, David Finkel, Jake Kasdan and Katherine Pope provide commentary on the Pilot. They talk about casting the series and point out some of the dropped storylines from the pilot.
  • “Bad in Bed” — Stars Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield and Lamorne Morris provide a fun commentary about the episode.
  • “See Ya” — Stars Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield and Lamorne Morris have a lot of fun talking about anything and everything except the season finale.

Final Thoughts:

Despite originally airing in HD on FOX, New Girl Season 1 only gets a Standard Definition release. That said, the picture quality on this set is quite clear and I don’t really have any complaints about it or the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

This DVD set contains all the major bonus features I look for—deleted scenes, audio commentary, behind the scenes footage and a really long gag reel. I was really happy to see that they got all four of the major cast members to participate in the audio commentaries.

New Girl‘s first season was a huge hit for FOX’s Tuesday night comedy block last year, and it’s easy to see why. The show is just as funny re-watching again on DVD. With great features and replay value, this DVD set is an easy recommendation.