As anyone who's ever frequented the Parks and Rec thread knows, I consider Mike Schur a golden god, so it was only a matter of time until I got around to watching this. I had seen the pilot back when it aired and I enjoyed it, but it just slipped through the cracks. I purchased Amazon Fire TV and received it on Friday, though, so I began watching this on the Hulu Plus app. I ended up watching the entire season over the weekend.
It's a slow burn, but I think it's quality. Much like Parks and Rec, it took about 8-9 episodes to really find its feet, but once it did I thought it was excellent. Terry Crews was the standout performer for me. He consistently killed it which I was not expecting. Brilliant effort by him.
Personally, I could see Mike Schur's fingerprints all over the show. There are obvious parallels between some of the characters here and on P&R, but for me the two aspects which resonated the most were the tempo of the show and I guess what I'd call, for lack of a better term, its evolution. The latter is, for me, Parks and Rec's standout feature and I was really glad to see echoes of it on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Schur's shows, unlike most standard sitcoms, always seem to be moving forward. Most comedies find a sweet spot and refuse to move from there. Financially, it's a very prudent thing to do (just ask Chuck Lorre's bank account), but critically it blows. It's why most are considered to have dulled/jumped the shark by about their fourth season. Parks is always pushing its characters forward, occasionally looking back, but almost never standing still. I thought there were clear signs of the same with Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The most obvious is how they conclude the season for Jake, but I thought they did an excellent job of it with Boyle and the Sarge as well.
I also enjoyed the depth they gave to their characters which is another aspect reminiscent of Parks. Boyle's not just the pushover archetype, he's also brave, loyal, and often self-aware. Gina is clearly an eccentric oddball, but she's surprisingly perceptive and fiscally responsible. Scully can sing. Holt is gay and considered extremely funny in his social circle. Everyone has their niche, but they're far from beholden to it.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, especially the latter half of the season. Oh, and Nick Offerman saying "Fremulon" at the end of the credits cracked me up every single time.
