Single Parents Is Basically a New Girl Remix

The other day I came to the realization that Single Parents and New Girl have A LOT of similarities. I believe that they are essentially the same show. 

I was casually rewatching some episodes of New Girl as I am known to do and decided to open up my favorite app, IMDb. I wanted to see what other shows the creator worked on, which led me to Elizabeth Meriwether’s credits. Right away, I saw New Girl and as well as two newer shows, Bless This Mess and Single Parents. I’ve seen all of Single Parents so finding out the creator also created New Girl was an interesting, but not surprising discovery. As I was looking at the IMDb page, it was the cover art for New Girl and Single Parents that stood out to me and got me thinking about the similarities between the shows aside from the creator.

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For starters, both of the photos feature five main cast members. If we take a look at race and gender, there are also parallels. They each have one Black lead, three white leads, and one lead of Asian descent. There are also three males and two women leading both shows. When I made this realization, I started to wonder what other parallels may exist between these shows. 

I was able to map each of the main characters in Single Parents to the main characters in New Girl. I’ll start with my strongest cases and then work my way down.

• Will is the Jess

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They both are the most optimistic of their groups while also having a grip on reality. They are both very passionate about almost everything, but especially when it comes to their friends and their career choices. For Jess, it’s her passion for education, and for Will, it’s his passion for the weather. They love their friends so much and go above and beyond when it comes to showing their affection; Jess gives very specific gifts that her friends sometimes hate but come from a place of love and Will makes detailed slideshows. They both had bad past relationships. Jessica had that guy she was living with who cheated on her (I think his name was like Spencer) and Will has his ex-wife.

• Angie is the Nick

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They are both hot messes. They are barely functioning adults, but they both manage to have jobs that they’re good at, and Angie manages to do a great job raising her son (she might have ruined my job thread in the last few episodes of season 2 but just let’s ignore that). They’re both slobs and have ridiculous habits that they see no problems with. For Angie, it’s her printer and gas station candles, and for Nick, it’s basically all of his idiosyncrasies. Nick and Angie both have difficulties entering relationships and they’re also wearing flannels.

• Miggy is the Winston

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Both of them are under-appreciated in the context of the show as well as outside. There’s just not enough Winston love for me (we’re going to ignore that career move in the later seasons though). Honestly, I don’t see many people talking about Single Parents as a show at all, but I’m sure they would still be sleeping on Miggy. Winston and Miggy are both often in their own worlds while everything else is going on (Winston trying to set his cat up and Miggy trying to pick a hot guy to live in Angie’s place), but they can always drop nuggets of wisdom when the other characters need to hear it. I also find them both to be hilarious. 

• Douglas is the Schmidt

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I will admit that these two are not exactly the same because Schmidt is very openly affectionate while Douglass does not like to show vulnerability. Douglas, however, is a man of many feelings; over time we get to see that play out on screen with his widow support group and after his breakup. Both of them are obsessed with the finer things in life and the way they present themselves to the world. For me, it also took longer to like both of these characters. They are each the most likely to say something problematic within their friend group, and despite that, they both have love interests of color.

• Poppy is the Cece

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I have the weakest argument for this comparison, but it still works. To start, Poppy and Cece are the only two left so it has to work. Aside from that, both of them have very specific and nontraditional careers that they kind of happened into. Cece was a model and later was able to take her experience and turn it into her own modeling agency. Poppy was in a low place and ended up turning that into a successful wine bar (and maybe book store?). Both of their names have two syllables and they’re both the best friend of another character in the show.

*The characters are almost perfectly matched in the cover art for each show*


I also was able to make some connections between some of the core relationships of the shows. Both New Girl and Single Parents have characters developed in a way that allows any duo to flourish. It does not matter which two characters are paired together, the audience is always in for a treat. From the development of the classic Winston and Cece mess around to when Angie lived with Douglas. Romance aside (I will get into that soon), any pairing is guaranteed gold. Single Parents has the added (in my opinion) bonus of also having children in the cast. Even the different children pairings are entertaining. Whether the kids off are on their own missions or paired with various parents that might not even be theirs, the results are always very humorous or heartfelt, often it’s both. 

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Specifically, in terms of friendships, Angie and Poppy had a very Jess and Cece friendship. Both sets are best friends, though Angie and Poppy met as adults. They are always there for each other no matter what and give each other honesty when they really need to hear it. They will also blindly back each other up. Sure they may argue, but they always make up and are so full of love for each other. 

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Now that we know all of the duos are solid friendship wise, let me get into the relationship parallels. Angie and Will are Nick and Jess. Yes, the characters match up, but that is not the only reason. They both started as really great friends with a solid foundation, then both had a frustratingly slow slow-burn. It was painfully obvious to the audience and everyone around these characters how both of these pairings felt about each other, but there were always some outside forces (or other relationships) in the way. Unfortunately, Single Parents has been canceled so we don’t even get to see what Will and Angie could be. 

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Poppy and Douglass are like Cece and Schmidt. Again, the characters line up, but also the relationships were strong (when they were at their best). These characters just somehow fit together so well that you (at least I) rooted for it. I don’t know if Poppy and Douglass would have been able to make it work in the long run because of Poppy wanting another kid, but we don’t get to find out. For the sake of my argument, these two were meant to be, much like Schmidt and Cece. Cece brought out the best parts of Schmidt, just like Poppy for Douglass. 

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Winston and Miggy both had relationships outside of the core group, which really just adds to my comparison. At one point Miggy was in a thrupple, which is not a parallel, but a fun addition. 

So in conclusion, Single Parents is just New Girl if they all had kids that went to the same school and they didn’t live together. 

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New Girl is available to watch on Netflix and Single Parents can be found on Hulu. I’m actually very sad about Single Parents getting canceled, which I didn’t even find out until writing this. Meriwether’s other project Bless This Mess also got canceled this year.