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Brooklyn Nine-Nine actually got solid ratings last night, right between the ratings numbers pulled in by The Mindy Project and The New Girl. So I'd be more concerned about The Mindy Project being cancelled at this point. It also happened to be one of the funniest pilot episodes I've ever seen and has the best sitcom cast since Happy Endings and Parks and Recreation, so! Fingers crossed on this one having a nice long life.

mfunk9786 wrote:Brooklyn Nine-Nine actually got solid ratings last night, right between the ratings numbers pulled in by The Mindy Project and The New Girl. So I'd be more concerned about The Mindy Project being cancelled at this point. It also happened to be one of the funniest pilot episodes I've ever seen and has the best sitcom cast since Happy Endings and Parks and Recreation, so! Fingers crossed on this one having a nice long life.

Has anyone enjoyed Brooklyn Nine-Nine the last few weeks? No episodes have been nearly as good as the pilot, and I'm starting to worry about its long-term quality...

I kept putting off actually watching it and now that the ratings are so horrible that its cancellation is a certainty, I don't feel too bothered about it

The lighthearted tone completely went off the rails after the first episode (nothing kills comedy like a stern boss character stifling your goofy protagonist), and Chelsea Peretti is pretty much the only funny thing about it at this point

I've been impressed with all of the episodes so far. For me, it's probably the most dependable comedy on network-TV at the moment since P&R has been kind of coasting lately.

For me it's almost great, despite Chelsea Peretti's forced wackiness. I'm very glad it got a full order and can continue developing.

I liked the first episode. Haven't been impressed with too many since and this Halloween one was just painful to watch. Peretti has the only character that is somewhat consistently funny. I also feel like there are a LOT of dead-end jokes, show spends too much time trying to set up punchlines that aren't worth it.

It feels like there could be potential there but, I dunno, Samberg is kind of exhausting to watch in this volume so I can't imagine this thing getting on a sustained roll.

Contrast it with New Girl's Halloween episode and Brooklyn Nine-Nine isn't even in the same ballpark of effectiveness, as much as it seems to want to be.

I was discussing this with LQ last night - not that everyone else is lighting up the screen, but Andy Samberg, who I find genuinely funny and entertaining in sketch and even music, is horrible in this. Horrible. His delivery is all wrong, with the same affectation applied to every line (everything's this uppity "I'm being wacky!" rhythm), and every time the story centers around him everything comes to a screeching halt. Also, the set design is far too chaotic, it's suffering from a bit of early NewsRadio syndrome on steroids - they need to create the unrealistic illusion that no one else works in this police station, stat. It gives me a headache whenever people are running around in the background, which is always. The show isn't only incredibly disappointing for the last few weeks, but it doesn't even look like it's fun to make. It's a shame it's getting a full 20+ episode first season and is seeing some resurgence in the ratings, because it needs the sort of retooling that Parks and Recreation went through after its awful six-episode first season.

I actually really enjoy the fact that they are focusing on a single team within a functioning police department. I don't find the extras shuffling around in the background distracting at all, or that they have minor characters pop up occasionally. It just reminds me that we're focusing on a few characters within a bigger department.

You don't find it to be visual overload, especially during the Halloween episode when everyone's in costume, that the characters we're viewing are in a tiny area of a large room filled with people? I completely understand that's realistic, but it's bad television set design - especially from someone who came from Parks and Recreation, which, when in the office, takes place in a space where most of the main characters work, with ample visual breathing room and a comfortable sense of place. I already made the comparison, but NewsRadio is the best example of 'less is more' in a workplace sitcom when they began to pare down the amount of characters working in the newsroom to the bare essentials. Created a lot more space on set for jokes and physical comedy to breathe, rather than having to work around extras occupying the empty spaces. Or maybe I just hate this show.

Not really sure what I could tell you to convince you, but I haven't been overloaded or overwhelmed by the set design or visual composition of the show, at least not that I can recall. I think that's mostly because no matter how they set up the scene, the majority of the interaction is basically just conveyed in medium-close-ups of the main characters. I agree they probably have to get rid of some of the peripheral characters that orbit the main cast, but that really isn't causing any visual chaos for me as a viewer (they show up for one beat in an episode at most), and it will likely just happen over time once they have to start cutting their budget to stay on air.

Andre Braugher and the small dogs make for an excellent pair.

Well, the Hollywood Foreign Press apparently loves the show-- it rather improbably just won Best Actor and Best Comedy Series at the Golden Globes

Though it's not unusual for the Hollywood Foreign Press to show greater appreciation for a new TV show than the other award shows and US critics. Granted, in the past, it's usually for a young ingenue in some new drama or for some new drama that has mediocre ratings, but their TV selections are usually surprising in one or two categories every year.

Not that I give a lot of weight to the Globes, and I've only seen three episodes of this show...but I feel like I must have seen the wrong three episodes or something.

This show has vastly improved since its first few episodes, been binge-watching since LQ convinced me to give it another chance. The recent string of episodes (beginning with "Pontiac Bandit," the first aired in 2014) has been incredibly strong, there is seriously not a clunker or anything approaching it in the bunch, and it's tough to even pinpoint a standout since they're all so strong.

Anyone who was ambivalent or gave up on the show early on is wise to dive in. It's as if we're seeing the evolution of Parks and Recreation from Season 1 to Season 2 happen all within one full order 22+ episode season, or another example of the sort of growth that Community had throughout its first season. So glad I was dragged back in.

I really enjoyed the episode about the Captain's birthday because it began to take us outside the world of the precinct a bit and really found a way to begin to dimensionalize his character without really softening him or changing him in a way that would undermine why he's (to me) the best character in the show. I loved how he was the comic pinnacle of his social group, and that followed on well to the next episode with his joke at the top of his campaign speech.

I also like how they are making it a bit serialized, like with Marilu Henner's character. This and "Mom" are for me the best new sitcoms of the season.

And now canceled

And four years without a comment - granted the forum's a small sampling, but it doesn't make the news much of a surprise.

Exceedingly few shows garner regular discussion here anymore though

What if Criterion Forum is actually a TV show that got canceled 5 years ago without being told?

I'm of the opinion every TV show is entitled to run forever, but I don't really see "the outrage" over this. The show is good. I watch it. I'm glad it ran for 100+ episodes! I don't really think I need more, nor is it a show that would be particularly well served by "wrapping it up." I say this as somebody who thinks the eighth season of the Office is the best one - some shows just don't need to continue on and on and have to resolve all their characters perfectly, and should be able to just exist in a perpetual loop in syndication where the fates of their characters never change.

Nah, series finales are fun