Over the span of the past few days, Fox’s highest-rated comedy series “went from a shoo-in for a 13-episode final season to the brink of cancellation to an eight-episode renewal,” Nellie Andreeva writes on Deadline.com, recounting the wild ride that “New Girl” has been on.

“When the Season 6 finale came and went last month, everyone assumed the comedy was getting one more chapter for a proper sendoff,” Andreeva writes. “But as broadcast series renewals and cancellations started rolling in midway through last week, a shocker hit the rumor mill — ‘New Girl’ was getting canceled. While the show did not officially get the ax, it came very, very close to it.”

Star Zooey Deschanel’s maternity leave was one of a number of obstacles that came close to dooming the show, the story reports. But Andreeva says a last-minute pitch by creator/executive producer Liz Meriwether with a final-season arc “turned the tide.”

We encourage readers to click on the link to Deadline near the top of this report for the full story.