Catch Up on <i>Brooklyn Nine Nine</i> During Season One’s “Second-Inning Stretch”

About 20% of the way through its debut season, the new Fox comedy Brooklyn Nine Nine has been on sort of a “second-inning stretch”* because of playoff baseball the last couple of weeks. With new episodes set to return next week, now is a good time to catch up on one of the season’s most reliably funny new comedies. When Andy Samberg recently appeared as both a roaster and a roastee on Comedy Central’s James Franco roast, most of the non-Jewish jokes** directed at Sandberg took the form of, “Your new TV show is going to fail miserably. Fox will cancel it within two minutes. You suck.” Given Fox’s history of pulling the plug quickly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if those insults had turned out to be right. I’ll also say that B99 didn’t hold much interest for me until I learned that its creative team also helped launch Parks and Recreation, which, as I’ve already written here, is my favorite comedy. However, it looks like Brooklyn Nine Nine is both better and more successful than initially believed by skeptics like James Franco and me (Franco and I have tons of other stuff in common too, which may or may not include good looks and perpetual intoxication). So if you’re looking for some new comedy, I recommend checking out the show’s online episodes this weekend and then setting your DVR for its return next Tuesday, November 5. For me, the show succeeds for two primary reasons – its fairly rich secondary characters, and its ability to play with cop show cliches and use them to its advantage. Only a few episodes in, B99 already has built several solidly funny secondary characters and started to give them depth. Old guys like me might instantly recognize Joe Lo Truglio as a veteran of the beloved sketch comedy troupe The State, members of which have gone on to get big laughs in pretty much everything funny for the last 20 years. Lo Truglio’s character, Charles Boyle, is introduced in the pilot as both a bumbling fool and an effective, hardworking detective, and subsequent episodes have fleshed out that rather nuanced characterization to great effect. Former NFL player and action-flick muscleman Terry Crews earns big laughs as Sgt. Terry Jeffords, a physically imposing but temperamentally timid supervisor with a sensitive side. http://youtu.be/tXfn_Zqc7Pk And Andre Braugher is of course excellent as Captain Ray Holt, the foil for Samberg’s Jake Peralta and, at times, the motivator for Peralta to reconsider his wiseass demeanor and his rogue, “play by my own rules” approach to police work. Speaking of such cop show stereotypes, Brooklyn Nine Nine also works for me because of its willingness to play with those tropes, at times staying within rigid genre boundaries and at times gleefully crossing them. For example, the pilot effectively sets up a complicated relationship between Peralta and Holt, with Peralta’s natural tendencies to undermine authority being challenged by Holt’s impeccable, well-earned credentials and rock-solid integrity. I also like how Brooklyn Nine Nine does the only interesting thing you can do with a “chase scene” or a “fight scene” on a cop show these days – play it for slapstick comedy. I can’t find a video clip, but there’s a hilarious grocery store chase/fight in the pilot that involves Joe Lo Truglio being assaulted with various deli meats and Andy Samberg being repeatedly “cop-blocked” by a clueless old lady. The show isn’t without flaws – thus far for me, the least interesting thing is its reliance on Peralta/Samberg one-liners. He’s the center of attention frequently enough that, if you don’t like Andy Samberg, I’d imagine your reaction to the show will be pretty different from my fondness for it. But if Samberg's somewhat excessive mugging for the camera doesn’t sound like a deal-breaker to you, then I’d say give Brooklyn Nine Nine a look this weekend. With the survival of Parks and Recreation looking more questionable by the week, I’m hopeful that B99 will prove a worthy successor based on the strengths its displayed thus far. *Pardon the flimsy baseball metaphor. I know the real stretch is five innings later, designed to give every guy in the stadium the chance to chug four more overpriced Bud Lights before the beer stands close down. AKA the real national pastime... **It was mostly Jewish jokes. So, so many Jewish jokes.