If The Terminator and The Matrix have taught us anything, it would be to beware of technology. Max Greenfield, who so memorably plays Schmidt on one of this past season's biggest new hits, New Girl, came into our office today to record Channel Surfing, the IGN TV podcast, with myself and Matt Fowler. We had a great time with Max and a really fun conversation… And then the podcast computer decided we can't have nice things and imploded, taking most of the podcast with it.

Normally, we would have been totally screwed, but, via a bunch of dark magic I can't reveal, I was able to save some of the podcast. Not enough to put it up (without it sounding incredibly disjointed), but below, in beautiful text-form, are some of the highlights.

In the meantime, we are working on having Max back in the office for Take 2 of his appearance on Channel Surfing. We're gonna do it right next time, people, I promise! The machines won't win!

New Girl is not only a great show but was an out of the gate success, but when we began our conversation, Greenfield declared, "I'm as shocked as anybody! It's nuts. I've been doing this for awhile. I've been in TV for quite a long time and I've seen the ups and the downs of certain shows and my wife works in casting on TV, so I get a behind the scenes kind of look. When you're doing it long enough, you become friendly with the producers and the writers. And at that point, you know what a rarity it is for a show to become a hit. And it is literally like winning the lottery. And not to take away from all the talent that's behind the show, but you need so many things to go right and all this process is are obstacles where things can go terribly wrong, or a little thing can go wrong that then sets off something else. And then the next thing you know, the show you went out to make is not the show you're making."

Regular New Girl director (and a producer on the series) Jake Kasdan made a satirical film about the pilot process called The TV Set, starring David Duchovny, which Greenfield described as "frighteningly accurate." Kasdan worked on the late, great Freaks and Geeks, and Greenfield remarked, "Our show's a very weird thing where I feel like Freaks and Geeks and My So-Called Life and Arrested Development… these great, great shows that I think didn't hit because of timing, whether they just didn't find an audience or they just weren't ready… Obviously, Freaks and Geeks was way ahead of its time considering all the success that those people have had. They can just be like, 'Hey guys, you had us all at one point! You could have had a show with Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Judd Apatow, James Franco – the list goes on and on. But you decided to cancel it! Way to go, guys.' So I think timing was definitely a factor in why those shows didn't work. And I feel like we are reaping the benefits of their unfortunate demises, you know what I mean? Because I think people are watching us going, 'This is reminiscent of those shows, to some degree, and we're not letting this one go.'"

Greenfield recalled having, "A poor pilot season the year before, where I had tested for a bunch of shows and didn't get any of them – a few shows I really liked. So going into his pilot season, I had trust issues and weird feelings and was just like, 'Not another one! I don't know if I can get through another pilot season.'"

Amusingly, Greenfield was testing for another show with Jake Johnson, who plays Nick on New Girl, where they were up for the same role - on the same day they also both tested for their respective roles on New Girl. "Zooey [Deschanel] had committed to the show that same week, so I remember thinking, 'Well, I'm never getting this one!' I'm testing for all these other shows that are whatever, just other shows, and I'm thinking, 'well, maybe this will be the one."

Of course, Greenfield not only got the role on New Girl, but then saw Schmidt become the show's breakout character. He told us he was really enjoying the romantic storyline with Cece (Hannah Simone), which hit a big turning point with a pregnancy scare last week, which will be followed in this week's episode – the first of the final three of Season 1 – where Cece tells Schmidt he should date other people and he ends up going out with one of her model roommates.

Discussing this last batch of episodes, Greenfield said, "I think it just gets really good in the sense that I think we find a really nice place in these last couple of episodes. Because I will say the one thing about our show is we thread that needle I think pretty well of the emotional stuff with the heart and all the funny stuff and going back and forth, which is a tough thing. Because if it's too sappy then you go, 'I thought I'm watching a comedy.' But sometimes I've seen shows where it's all jokes and you go, 'Well, I don't know if you've earned any of these jokes.' And I think we tread a good line here in the last couple episodes of that and I feel like it really works and pays off."

---

Continue to Page 2, as Greenfield discusses Fat Schmidt and his time on Veronica Mars.