‘New Girl’ season 3 finale spoilers: First look at ‘Cruise’; Damon Wayans Jr. promoted

We have a pair of stories to share today related to “New Girl,” but let’s start with one that is going to severely impact the future of the Fox show: Damon Wayans Jr. becoming a permanent fixture.

It has been confirmed now that the man behind Coach has been promoted to a series regular, and therefore should be locked in for the entirety of season 4 to be used as often as producers see fit. This is a major step up for the character, who was in the pilot and did not appear again until earlier this season. Eventually, his four-episode arc turned into so much more.

This promotion for the actor must signal that Wayans’ attempt to land a new TV pilot on the schedule is over, but he at least has a new home for the months ahead. This also gives the writers time to come up with some fun ways to integrate him into the cast. We admittedly did not really enjoy Coach as much as we thought that he was at first when he came back, since it felt obvious that the show was trying to force the issue. However, it did slowly improve from there, and the past few episodes of him have felt fully-integrated and funny. The show now has a full summer to really kick back and figure out some more interesting uses for him.

Now, if only there was a way to improve the show’s ratings, which have surprisingly fallen off a cliff the past year or so. We blame in part the success of “About a Boy” for this, coupled with some weaker episodes of the show making it less of appointment viewing and into something that people don’t want to watch live.