Yes, Zooey Deschanel can charm her way through anything: Watch "The New Girl"

Actually, the poster above, of course, has nothing at all to do with Zooey Deschanel, but like her it is, in its own way, rather beautiful. In case you couldn't guess, it's a teaser poster for David Fincher's take on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," and though I'm still skeptical that there's any reason at all for that to even be happening, the poster designed by graphic artist Neil Kellerhouse and shot by Jean-Baptist Mondino, at least, is pretty friggin' fantastic.

But the main event here today is indeed the new Fox sitcom "The New Girl," starring Zooey Deschanel and set to premiere Tuesday on Fox after "Glee" but, courtesy of Hulu, also fully embedded here today.

When I first saw the promos for this, my first two thoughts were "what in the world is she doing in this?" and "man, does that look awful." Well, having watched all of the pilot, it turns out to be a heck of a lot better than I was expecting, almost entirely because of Zooey herself and also due to some much-better-than-expected writing.

One definite word of warning: The show really doesn't need a "douche bag jar" (watch it to find out), because the three guys she decides to move in with seem to have that pretty much nailed 24/7. That said, the landscape of new shows looks pretty bleak right now. In fact, the only ones I'm now planning to watch are:

"Up All Night," mostly because it stars Gob Bluth and Kelly Bundy, and because the pilot was indeed pretty wry for broadcast TV.

"Two Broke Girls," because I like Kat Dennings (sensing a trend here?), and because packaged with "How I Met Your Mother" it should make for a perfectly mindless hour block of TV after a Monday workday.

"Ringer," because though it's entirely not anything close to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the pilot was intriguing enough to make me tune in to find out what happens to Sarah Michelle Gellar this time out. And

"Terra Nova," because, well, dinosaurs.

And now, "The New Girl." It's far from perfect, but if you're a fan of Zooey Deschanel, it's also a heck of a lot better than most of what's on TV now. Enjoy the pilot below (which looks great full screen), tune in on Tuesday nights at 9 for more if you do, and stick around here today for some Muppets silliness just to bring the "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" theme full circle.



If Jason Segel's and James Bobin's "The Muppets" somehow sucks, it's gonna mean the waste of an already pretty epic marketing campaign, but I'm betting that's not going to happen. Already, we've been inundated with a number of trailers, a cover album of favorite Muppets tunes and more than a few parodies. But I'm an admitted Muppets addict, so as long as they're funny, as this "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" clip clearly is, I'll gladly continue to be a cog in the machine. Enjoy the clip, have a great rest of the weekend, and if you somehow haven't yet, go see "Drive" already. Peace out.