As “New Girl” winds down tonight after seven seasons on Fox, we’re already thinking ahead to how we can get one more new thing out of the Zooey Deschanel comedy.
Yeah, we’re talking a new series.
Because we’re not ready to let go of the Elizabeth Meriwether-created sitcom just yet, TheWrap asked executive producer and co-showrunner Brett Baer what the most sellable idea for a spinoff would be.
“For seven years, we’ve talked about ‘Schmidt Happens,’ so of course there is that show,” Baer said, laughing, referencing a series that would obviously center around Max Greenfield’s lovable jerk Schmidt. (Alas, the actor just signed on to replace Josh Lawson in the CBS sitcom “The Neighborhood.”)
“Then there of course is the Winston (Lamorne Morris) one-hour long cop drama with Aly (Nasim Pedrad) as his partner and wife. But you know, you play that real serious and you have actual, really gritty crimes,” he added, again, laughing.
OK, all jokes aside, Baer thinks with a series that boasts characters like Winston, Schmidt, Jess (Deschanel), Nick (Jake Johnson), and Cece (Hannah Simone) there are endless possibilities to what you could do within the “New Girl”-verse.
“Boy the spinoff on this show — one of the magnificent things about working on a show for seven years with this kind of a cast, all the guest players we’ve had that are incredible regulars, is that you look at any pairing of those characters and go, ‘That’s incredible. They’re funny together. They look terrific together.’ And you say, ‘Anybody on this show could have had their own show,’” Baer said.
“But all these people are so gifted and all these pairings are so great, you know, I think any one of them could have had a spinoff or could have a spinoff,” he added. “And I think that there was something kind of beautiful about everybody at the end of this process looking at each other and saying, ‘I think we did it.’”
“These characters went from, you know where they started and needing each other in their lives, in each other’s lives, to be able to grow together and become who they are becoming and they did become. And I think by the end of the eighth episode you go, ‘They all kind of got exactly where they were going and they helped each other get there and it’s time to move forward.’”
Of course, even if there isn’t a spinoff, Baer thinks the cast is going places.
“It’s so exciting now that the show is over to see people like Hannah Simone getting a chance to go do her own pilot with ‘Greatest American Hero’ and you’re like, ‘Yeah, you know she deserves that,” he said. (ABC passed on picking up “Greatest American Hero” as a series.)
“She was so incredible on our show for so long, it’s nice to see her have that opportunity,” he said.
The series finale of “New Girl” airs Tuesday at 9:30/8:30 c on Fox.