The series revolves around quirky teacher, Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel), after she moves into a Los Angeles loft with three men, Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris).

The show combines comedy and drama elements as the characters, who are in their late 20s and early 30s, deal with relationship issues and career choices.

The pilot episode drew 10.28 million U.S. viewers and a 4.8 adults 18–49 demo rating, making it the highest-rated fall debut for a Fox scripted show since 2001.

Jessica "Jess" Day (Zooey Deschanel), a bubbly and quirky teacher in her late 20s, comes home from vacation to find her boyfriend, Spencer (Ian Wolterstorff), with another woman and leaves him immediately to look for somewhere else to live.

After Jess answers an ad for a new roommate on Craigslist, she moves into a loft in Los Angeles with three men around her own age: Nick, Schmidt, and Coach.

After the pilot episode, Winston, a former roommate and Nick's childhood friend, replaces Coach, who leaves the apartment to live with his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, after bouncing around several random jobs and several dating choices throughout the series, Winston works to become a police officer with the LAPD, and falls in love with his partner Aly[1] (Nasim Pedrad).

[3] Season 7 advances the storyline three years later where Schmidt and Cece have a three-year-old daughter named Ruth, Winston and Aly are expecting their first baby, and Nick proposes to Jess.

The principal cast of New Girl includes: 20th Century Fox Television first approached playwright Elizabeth Meriwether in 2008 to develop a pilot that was eventually shelved.

"[10] Movie actress and singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel was in the process of developing an HBO show when she read the New Girl pilot script and responded to the material.

"[22] She sent the New Girl pilot script to movie actor Jake Johnson, with whom she had enjoyed working on No Strings Attached[26] and guided him through the audition process.

[28] Meriwether originally envisioned Coach as "a fat Jewish guy, like a manchild" and later as "this dumb jock [with] crazy rage problems".

[22] David Neher (who would play Schmidt's so-called "fremesis," Benjamin, in four episodes) was among the 400 actors auditioning for Coach before the producers settled on Damon Wayans Jr.[26] who was expecting his show, the ABC sitcom Happy Endings, to be cancelled.

When that show was renewed for a second season, Wayans' spot was replaced with Lamorne Morris,[29] who had also read for Coach but had been unavailable for filming the pilot.

[17] Meriwether estimated that about 80 percent of the pilot would have needed to be re-shot in order to remove Wayans from the episode, since he was in one of the leading roles of the show.

[29] As the producers also liked reflecting the frequent apartment changes in young people's lives,[17] Meriwether, 20th Century Fox and the studio decided to keep the characters and the plot of the pilot episode as they were.

[31] Writers intended to keep actors and audiences on their toes by planning very few story arcs and focusing on setting up characters in the first couple seasons .

"[21] Each New Girl episode started out as a pitch page, went through stages of an outline and a final draft before being filmed and edited,[10] a process which could take weeks.

[35] The actors first perform scenes as written, then act out the alternatives or improvise,[9] to later allow the producers and editors to choose the gags that ultimately work best.

[22] The writers noticed late during the first season that Morris seemed better suited to play a smart character and act as the loft's voice of reason,[14][22] although Meriwether found that when Winston "finally does blow up, he's crazier than all of them"[22] and that he works better "in these kind of crazy, comedic runners, small pieces of the episode"[31] that contrast the relationship dramas of the other main characters.

[61] Other international broadcasters include Channel 4 and E4 in the United Kingdom,[62] RTÉ2 in the Republic of Ireland,[63] Network Ten and Eleven in Australia,[64] and Four in New Zealand.

[100] In June 2011, New Girl was one of eight honorees in the "most exciting new series" category at the 1st Critics' Choice Television Awards, voted by journalists who had seen the pilots.

[101] Robert Bianco of USA Today considered New Girl "fall's most promising new series" and praised how Deschanel and Meriwether "have shaped Jess into something we haven't quite seen before – a woman who is sweet yet crass, innocent yet sexy, beautiful yet clumsy, and brash yet irresistibly adorable."

"[102] The Hollywood Reporter's Tim Goodman saw the show as a "mostly romantic comedy", and although Jess' adorability "might seem like a thin premise, [...] Meriwether manages to make the situations funny and lets Deschanel channel her charm – a winning combination.

[105] Writing for the Daily News, David Hinckley lauded how none of the characters "settle in as the stereotypes they could easily become", and presumed that all of them would evolve and get smarter as the show progresses.

[107] Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the show's pilot was "more charming than hilarious" and "cuter than it is funny, but when it does conjure laughs, its style of humor is reminiscent of ABC's Happy Endings".

As part of this transition, Schmidt has gone from being a douchebag in the classic model—a guy who, in the pilot, constantly wanted to show off his pecs and scam girls, and seemed capable of doing so—to a douche of a more unique variety.

"[109] The Huffington Post's Maureen Ryan said how "Schmidt could have easily been 'the dumb guy', or the show could have exploited his status as an eminently mockable douche.

[112] The New York Times said season 2 "erupted in fantastic and bizarre fits and starts" because of the characters' unmatched personalities, and lauded the writers for not playing up the will-they-or-won't-they dynamic.

The continued Nick–Jess relationship was criticized in season 3 for dropping the characters' personalities, lack of tension,[113] and for neglecting the show's female friendship between Jess and Cece.