There’s good news on the horizon for New Girl fans. The Zooey Deschanel starrer has been renewed by Fox for a fifth season on the network. The schedule for the upcoming season is already pretty wonky, however, to accommodate Deschanel’s schedule. You see, Zooey Deschanel is currently pregnant, and so the show went into production for Season 5 before Fox even gave the public greenlight for the renewal.
It might seem weird that the show would go into production before the network even made the announcement, but budgets are needed to shoot TV shows, so the New Girl crew must have already expected to come back. As far as shooting now and then shooting the rest of the season way later goes, I actually find the concept to be pretty smart. New Girl doesn’t have any plans to write a pregnancy into the plotline, like Fox’s other series Bones, and thankfully fans won’t have to deal with any of the goofy TV angles and wardrobe choices that happen when a show is trying to hide a pregnancy. A while back, Jaime King’s pregnancy was hidden on Hart of Dixie, and it was the weirdest, so we’ll thankfully be able to avoid that.
We do have some details about the show’s upcoming fifth season. It’s hard to believe that New Girl has been on the air for long enough to achieve this milestone, but the show will actually be hitting Episode 100 next TV season. We know a few guest stars who will also be popping up as well, including Saturday Night Live performer Taran Killam. In addition, TV Line reports that John Cho has signed on for a guest stint on New Girl. The actor is free following the cancellation of ABC’s sitcom Selfie and could even appear in several Season 5 episodes.
In addition, we learned a few months ago that Damon Wayans, Jr. will be leaving New Girl once again. His character, Coach, exited the series after the pilot but returned after Happy Endings was cancelled. He reportedly opted out of a contract renewal, but the show has crafted an exit for the actor that will leave the door open should he want to or be able to appear on the series once more.
Fox didn’t announce exactly when New Girl will be returning, but since shooting is underway, we’ll presumably be getting new episodes next fall. The real question is whether Deschanel's pregnancy will affect the show's schedule later in the TV season. In the meantime, you can check out new episodes of New Girl on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET, only on Fox.
