New Girl: Season 6 May Be The End For the Series

Screen Rant

By Stephen Silver

Published Mar 13, 2017

New Girl star Jake Johnson says that FOX's long-running comedy may be in its final days, with the series potentially set to end with season 6.

The FOX sitcom New Girl has certainly changed a lot over the course of its six seasons. The series began as a vehicle for Zooey Deschanel, hot at the time off her role in 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, with the high concept that it was a gorgeous/nerdy young woman (the word “adorkable” was prominent in the original marketing) moving in with three male roommates (played by Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield and Damon Wayans Jr., who was later replaced by Lamorne Morris.)

Over time, though, the series, created by Elizabeth Meriwether, has evolved into something very different — a skilled ensemble comedy comprised of half-dozen strong characters, with a cast that has impeccably gelled over time, adding to an extensive mythology of nicknames and running jokes. And now, the series may be nearing its final days.

New Girl has not been renewed for a seventh season, and is most likely “done” as of the season finale that’s airing April 4. That’s according to Jake Johnson, who plays Nick Miller on the show, speaking while promoting a new film at SXSW in Austin, as reported by The Daily Beast.

“Fox won’t tell us [whether the show will be renewed],: Johnson said. “But we shot a finale where, if this was the end, the core fan base would be OK. I think after this season it’s done.”

The story, on the strength of a previous interview with Meriwether, also hints that the series could end, as Friends did, with the reunion of the show’s primary on-and-off romantic couple, with Johnson and Deschanel’s Nick and Jess riding off into the sunset just as Ross and Rachel did.

New Girl, despite shaky beginnings and an up-and-down first couple of years, has really emerged as a gem of a show, and that’s thanks to sharp writing, and a cast that works great together, in various situations and combinations. And six seasons is quite a body of work, for a series that's never been the biggest ratings draw on its night, or its network.

If this is the end of New Girl, it will certainly be missed. But the team behind it will have the satisfaction of knowing that they’re going out on top, and that we’ll be seeing most of them again in other projects.