Since 2007, TV Club has dissected television episode by episode. Beginning this September, The A.V. Club will also step back to take a wider view in this, our new TV Reviews section. With pre-air reviews of new shows, returning favorites, and noteworthy finales, the TV Reviews section doesn't replace TV Club—as usual, some shows will get the weekly treatment—but it adds a look at a bigger picture.
The current make of Fox sitcom is a Trojan horse: The majority of the network’s Tuesday nights are occupied by comedies that hook viewers with a known quantity—Zooey Deschanel, Mindy Kaling, and now Andy Samberg on Brooklyn Nine-Nine—but inspire loyalty with colorful, endearing supporting casts. It’s a model based on the balance New Girl struck midway through its first season, and it’s one The Mindy Project seems increasingly aiming toward, even if Dr. Mindy Lahiri remains far better drawn than any of her OB/GYN associates. This is a conclusion Brooklyn Nine-Nine appears to have arrived at earlier than either aforementioned show, its bullpen camaraderie locked down from the cold open on. That doesn’t just outpace its network cohorts—it also laps the last show co-creators Michael Schur and Dan Goor worked on, Parks And Recreation.
The most exciting sitcom ensemble of the fall draws from some heavy-hitting comedic institutions: Saturday Night Live and The Lonely Island for Andy Samberg, The State for Joe Lo Truglio; Terry Crews and Chelsea Peretti are fresh off of stints with Arrested Development and Parks And Rec, respectively. But the pilot’s secret weapon is Andre Braugher, making his debut in a primetime comedy and clearly relishing the opportunity. His Captain Ray Holt is a straight shooter concealing a wry sense of humor, a crucial counterbalance to Samberg’s zanier tendencies. The pair strikes a winningly sweet-and-sour dynamic, one that’s informed by decades of department hotshots bouncing off of their commanding officers, yet retains a playful freshness.
Performance is key in the first episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but there’s strong storytelling at work here, too. Like the Samberg-Braugher relationship, it’s part of a delicate give-and-take: The show depends on the instant chemistry generated by its leads, which enlivens the police-procedural framework (and vice versa). That genre has grown increasingly grim in recent years, so it’s refreshing to see wisecracks underlining, rather that juxtaposing, the details of an investigation. Yes, it’s a murder investigation, but the cops of Brooklyn Nine-Nine take their jobs seriously and the episode doesn’t dwell on the gory details—the joke is never on the victim, only on the culprit and the detectives on his trail. Still, this is a fundamentally lighthearted universe: The ammo in the premiere episode’s big grocery-store showdown would be harmful only to the lactose intolerant.