According to Keats, autumn is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. However, to the modern TV viewer, autumn features the debut of a brand new television season. One month in, I've established my favorite new shows of the season. Let's begin with Fox's cop police comedy, Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
The show stars Andy Samberg as Detective Jake Peralta, an NYPD detective in Brooklyn's fictional 99th Precinct. Peralta has a great deal of talent but a complete lack of professionalism. He enjoys goofing off, working on his own, and sporadically solving cases, which is a strategy that has worked until now. However, the Precinct now has a new Commanding Officer in the form of Captain Ray Holt (played by the magnificently sarcastic Andre Braugher) who is determined to whip the 99th Precinct into shape. He has both personal and professional reasons for doing so, and reforming Peralta becomes his pet project. The goofiness of Andy Samberg pairs wonderfully with the dry wit of Andre Braugher and the pair certainly have their work cut out for them.
The cast is rounded out by a diverse set of actors - there are Detectives Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio), Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), Sergeant Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews), and the administrator Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti). They all have their little quirks and foibles; Santiago in particular craves the new captain's approval and hates Peralta's ability to brilliantly solve cases without doing any tedious policework. However, the show is already bringing out a warm camaraderie among these disparate people and manages to be clever, witty, and warm all at once. This is not surprising because the show is the brainchild of Dan Goor and Michael Schur, who co-created Parks & Recreation, the warmest and funniest comedy on TV right now.
Starting from the pilot episode, the show throws in unexpected character twists and it's working hard to avoid cramming these people into any narrow stereotypes. They have distinct personalities, but more facets are revealed with each episode. Like any great comedy, the hope is that these characters will grow into fully three-dimensional people who can entertain audiences for years to come. The show also does a great job of coming up with clever cop stories each week - nothing too procedural, but something just inventive and silly enough to round out each episode.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is off to a strong start, and with such a fine comic pedigree in terms of its creators and stars, the show has the potential to stay on air for a while. Let's hope it fully embraces that potential and carves out a nice spot on the Fox comedy line-up.
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