Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Episode 1 - Review - Premiere

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Episode 1 - Review - Pilot

Brooklyn Nine-Nine was one of two new FOX shows premiering tonight. Coming on right after Dads, this show could've been 22 minutes of me getting punched through the teeth and it would've been a step up. Fortunately, it was a TV show and not a vicious assault on my mouthparts. It was, in fact, a pretty good TV show!

The show opens with a direct-to-the-camera monologue from star Andy Samberg. Turns out he's quoting a movie into an electronics store camera. Samberg's Detective Peralta is good at his job, but not at all serious. The show's shooting for a Park and Recreation or The Office style, with shaky cam, ensemble cast, and deadpan jokes. In that paradigm, Detective Peralta is Jim Halpert or Andy Dwyer. Unfortunately for goofball Peralta, his precinct is getting a new captain.

Captain Holt wants to know about his detectives, so the sergeant fills him in.

• Scully, Hitchcock, and Daniels: Three older officers that the sergeant describes only as "Worthless".
• Rosa Diaz: Hard, tough as nails. I like this character a lot. She reminds me of Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Rec.
• Charles Boyle: He works hard,  but he's not talented and is very clumsy. He's got a fun little romance plot with Diaz, which I'm looking forward to watching develop over the course of the season.
• Amy Santiago: A young detective from a big family, Santiago is out to prove something. She's in a bet with Peralta to land more arrests in a year. So far, they're neck-and-neck.
• Jake Peralta: The precinct's best detective, but an immature baby man. He's smart, but he doesn't like the rules and has a mischievous streak that would make Bugs Bunny blush a little.

The new captain, Ray Holt, is a straightforward man. He's not flustered by Peralta's nonsense. In fact, he seems to recognize the humor. He simply negates Peralta's need for showboaty joke-making by being unflappable. Like some of the other characters, Captain Holt has an interesting past. He's one of the NYPD's only openly gay commanding officers, and as such, this is the first precinct he's been able to take charge of. I'm sure throughout the season, Holt's story will be just as interesting to follow as Peralta's.

The plot of this episode is fairly straightforward: There's a murder nearby, Peralta's defiance makes for a missed arrest, and the team has to track down the suspect together. It's all standard stuff, but it drives home the point of the show quite nicely: These people are a team, and they have to stick together. I'm sure over the course of the show, we're going to see these people really start to trust one another and develop closer relationships. We already see a hint of it in a little romance plot with Diaz and Doyle. She's brooding and spooky, while he's a clumsy weirdo, but they like one another. It's the kind of show where the characters are underdogs who are very different but have the common ground of being in this job together. I like it.

Another interesting point here is that the main cast is primarily non-white and also is about half female. This is unusual for a network TV show these days, and very worthy of praise. Considering it was preceded in the lineup by a show about four white dudes making fun of minorities, this is made even more impressive. Also, a show with a non-stereotypical gay character is refreshing. All in all, I think the producers did a good job of hitting some of the cop show standard tropes in the cast, while also twisting it just enough to make it interesting and accurately represent the diversity of a city like New York.

So, Brooklyn Nine-Nine was a rousing success! Not many shows manage to have a pilot that feels like a fully-formed TV show right out of the gate, but this is one. The only stumbling block is one inherent in a pilot: The pace suffers from the need to introduce all the characters and concepts before attacking the episode's plot. It does a bit of a better job than last night's Sleepy Hollow premiere, which really just spent its entire hour setting up the season without much plot besides. I know I'll be tuning into this show (well, on DVR; it is up against Agents of SHIELD), and I hope you all will too! Check out a preview for this pilot below!