What is it that makes New Girl feel very of-the-moment? Brett Baer, one of the show’s executive producers, says he has a theory. “We were all surprised by how connected people felt [to the pilot],†Baer tells Written By, the WGA magazine. †I was thinking long and hard about it, and I said to Dave [Finkel, one of the other executive producers], ‘What we’ve done here is created maybe the first post-post-9/11 show,’†he says.
“The comedy in the past 10 years prior to our show had an edge to it,†Baer explains. “It was satirical. There was a cynicism about the comedy. What our show came along at the right time for — this weird alchemy that happened — is that we were willing for the first time to go, It’s okay to feel again.†Baer concedes that he “might be completely boneheaded and wrong,†but he also insists that New Girl is “the first show that actually tries to emotionally connect on that level.†Zooey Deschanel healed America!Â