3 out of 5

Created by: Dan Goor, Michael Schur

Covers season 1

It is one of the most average comedies ever ever ever… completely predictable, with characters drawn from various stock quirky and mean and straight-laced and goofy tropes, and yet… it makes you laugh.  And it’s fun to watch.  Although it’s a composite of nothing new, Brooklyn 99 scored with the most pleasing aspects of all these stereotypes, making it inoffensively fun.  Enlivened with the quirk of modern goofballs Chelsea Peretti and Andy Samberg, ‘Brooklyn’ even steps into more unique territory on occasion, but it’s still very safe about it, and that’s actually fine.  It’s satisfying to have a show that’s consistently chuckle-worthy with a fully likeable cast (seriously, even the one-joke side characters are likeable) that keeps coasting along comfortably instead of trying to make mawkish or edgy faces.  Occasionally we’ll get some character development, and that might turn gross in season 2, we’ll see, but thus far the creators and writers have done the viewers right by sprinkling in enough depth to keep everyone human but remembering to bring us back to the status quo and “core” of the show’s procedural goofs.  There’s also an oddly basic element that makes ‘Brooklyn’ have that warmth of familiarity: the police station is almost always where the majority of the action takes place, giving us that ‘Cheers’ vibe where we know we can return and see our favorite characters.  When focusing on character A and B, characters C and D are still kicking around in the background, and there’s something very embracing about that that brings us on to the team.  No new jokes, but the ones they tell are told well.