Let me start out by saying that there’s 0 way to start this out without the Brooklyn 99 theme song. I started this show a few years ago when I had no interest to watch this show because I was already invested in other shows, my main four shows I currently keep up with are The Goldbergs, Blackish, and … oh wait… Superstore and Fresh Off the Boat are over… right… denial… In either way, I was preoccupied with those and with college that I just didn’t have enough time or care for. Now that I am waiting for those shows to finished production so I can continue living vicariously through two ultimately nearing its end shows where I will have to face the inevitable fact that I AM ALONE – excuse me, too personal. Anyway, I started Brooklynn 99 on a Monday and finished the first season … that Monday. Then Season two was finished Tuesday, and I managed to watch one entire season a day. (This is what a college degree gets ya, kids) So, seven days later I felt I probably missed a ton of details since I left that seventh season feeling unsatisfied and incomplete. So, I watched the entire 7 seasons again, but this time I took my time and watched it in nine days instead of seven; learned to pace myself. Anyway, I learned my second time watching the series not only am I just in love with the show, yet it isn’t in my favorites for some reason…? But also, I felt incomplete and unsatisfied with Season 7 because Seasons 6 & 7 (and future season 8) are part of a new network… and it shows big time. The quality of filming changes, the characters kind of had a weird tonal shift as if they knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what so they’re just going along with it and it being the mediocre script. I will get to it when I get to the respective Seasons’ section, but I just wanted to say that there’s a reason I saw the whole series TWICE in order to feel satisfied, and the second time through… which is why I am shocked it took me LONGER to watch, haha, is just that I skipped most of season 7 too just because I just don’t like season 7! Anyway, I’m stepping into season 7 territory, haha! In any case, I love the show, just doesn’t quite make it. Maybe season 8, even though it will only consist of ten episodes – TEN! That’s… that’s not even a FULL season! The network has lost faith in Brooklyn 99 and I am just worried that it’ll end really poorly and weird with like a shoehorned ending just because oop, it’s ending! Just like Fresh off the Boat. Man, that ending was so lackluster. You could tell the ending wasn’t planned and they had to film new scenes to end the show properly. Ugh, just a shame. They should’ve renewed it for a seventh and final proper season rather than canceling it mid-filming. Dang it, Constance Wu! You could’ve secured work for one more year but instead, you decided to speak poorly and got quite literally, everyone fired. Enough of Fresh Off the Boat and onto Brooklynn 99!
Spoilers from here on out.
Season 1 – 5: So, what I am going to do here is I am actually going to talk about seasons 1 – 5 as a whole, then talk about seasons 6 – 7 as a whole. Mainly because it’s been a few weeks since I have seen B-99 so my memory on specifics may be spotty.
So, Brooklyn Nine-Nine seems to incorporate a per-season-storyline format as each season has a self-contained story in the overall adventure book of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The show doesn’t seem to have anything that it seems to be pointing towards, just a state of existence to tell the story of 8 past years of the 99th New York Police Precinct. Honestly, there comes a point while watching this series where you wonder if the main cast will ever get back to their state of normalcy. You see, during the first season, the main cast spends time on the fourth floor of the 9-9, as they should be. However, Seasons 2 – 4 were a wild ride of going in and out of a swinging door on the fourth floor. Even the cast made remarks about they’re never on the fourth floor anymore and wondering if things will ever go back to normal. Same here, kid. Same here. Despite this, the show does wonderfully at keeping your attention with different styles of storytelling formats from hardcore policework with little but meaningful humor, to more humorous less police-focused but rather character-driven by progressing their story or developing them further. In the end, the first 5 seasons are the best the show has to offer with its recurring Halloween Heist that gets crazier and crazier each season! The show does an excellent job at keeping recurring jokes relevant without overdoing them or having them be misplaced. With that being said, the humor is at times excellent from the hilarious cold opens to the witty banter the characters have (especially how sassy Holt can become in just an instant). The humor has created iconic characters that will surely live as archetypes for those characters, but that’s just the problem. These characters are too unique that they almost suppress the normal tropes, they add unto it. Which probably caused the overlook on this series from the general audience. Some might have felt unfamiliar with what was happening on screen like I did when I first tried this show out (back when it was only 4 seasons), that they probably just left the show without saying anything to anyone. But as the pandemic hit, more people have had more time on their hands and discovered the show to their hearts’ content. Yay. But. Back to the point, the characters are a little too iconic or fit the bill a little too well that they get lost in the mix of their more successful peers.
This brings me to my next point that the show lacks a niche. The whole relies heavily on its whacky Adam-Sandberg style humor to hide from the fact that… there is no niche to this show. his show has stood on the feet of copying other styles randomly here and there and has succeeded. That’s amazing to me! Because this show can totally stand on its own just as it is with the humor and the per-season storylines! It does not make it the best show out there, absolutely not. It lacks its own unique heart to really stand out against the rest of its peers. Unfortunately, the unique humor is not quite enough to put it at the top of its ranks. But overall, the shows, especially Seasons 1 – 5 are the show’s best that it offers, and you will not regret investing your time in these characters. Seasons 1 – 5 get a 9/10 for me.
Seasons 6 – 7: Oh boy… So, I was bored. Season 6 is not as bad as season 7. Season 7 is truly atrociously boring. It almost seems that the writers knew that they could get canceled at the end of the season so why try? That or the new network clearly didn’t want to hire old crew, so they hired newer writers who didn’t quite understand the characters for which they were writing. Of course, not all the episodes are bad. But on the second time around, I found myself skipping many Season 6 episodes simply because I remembered the entire episode being boring. I was that impressed by a poorly written episode that I actually remembered it by how boring it is in comparison to the rest of the show. When I said that seasons 1 – 5 is the show’s best work that it has to offer, I truly mean it. Season 6 is where Gina leaves for good, and you really could tell for leading up to this, perhaps even from the start of season 6 that Chelsea Perretti was not having it. We don’t really know exactly why she left as there have been no official details disclosed and nobody seems to be talking about it. The thing about Seasons 6 and 7 is that… you can 100% the show umped networks. You can 100% tell by how it looks, the tone, and the fact that they don’t seem to hit the mark, but they’re so close that is almost uncomfortable at times. I straight up can’t watch season 7 again. Season 6, I could do with skipping episodes I don’t care for (and the only time I’ve EVER done that was with The Office seasons 1-2). But overall, I feel Season 6 is important for the overall series story of the 99th Police Precinct, but Season 7… just… plays it while you’re preoccupied doing anything else. Season 6 gets an 8/10 while Season 7 gets a 6/10.
Overall, the show is great! I watched it twice and I high key want to watch it again. The humor is unique enough that it makes you laugh each time. I absolutely love most of the characters and I can’t wait for season 8 to finally conclude yet another great show I am giving Brooklyn 99 Seasons 1 – 7 and 8/10 for me.