‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ revels in resurrection
Critically acclaimed but low-rated cop comedy returns Thursday on NBC
LOS ANGELES – On the set of NBC’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” the cast goes through a precisely choreographed sequence of high-fives, including “the snake charmer,” a Pete Townsend guitar strum and a no-look, double-backhand fist explosion.
A superior officer, Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), has devised “a special punishment” for Detective Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), the tardy squad member left out of the chorus line.
“It was absolute hell,” the proper Holt tells Peralta. “But it will be worse for you.”
It is delicious torture for the highfive aficionado, but metaphorically, it seems an appropriate celebration for “Brooklyn,” a critically acclaimed but low-rated cop comedy canceled by Fox last May but resurrected by NBC, which produces the series, for a sixth season a day later. The series returns Thursday (9 EST/PST).
Samberg says the public outcry that followed the brief cancellation – featuring the likes of superfans LinManuel Miranda, Mark Hamill and Guillermo del Toro – was a surprise.
“The intensity of their appreciation caught us off guard a little bit and was maybe something that had been simmering beneath the surface. The show getting canceled gave everyone a focus point to rally around,” says Samberg, sitting in the squad’s break room, a well-worn sanctuary adorned by a beaten-up bumper-pool table, a framed list of New York labor laws and ancient coffee and candy machines.
“Brooklyn” writers were prepared for the possibility that the Season 5 closer, in which Jake marries his girlfriend and very competitive colleague, Sgt. Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), might be the series finale, executive producer Dan Goor says.
“We approached every other season by making the cliffhanger as dramatic as possible,” he says. But May’s finale was designed more as a “celebration,” and to make the cliffhanger “not so dire or stressful” that cancellation would have upset loyal fans. (The lingering mystery, to be resolved in Thursday’s opener, is whether Captain Holt gets promoted to police commissioner.)
NBC’s reprieve, for at least one 18episode season, allows “Brooklyn” to explore the couple’s marriage, along with developments in the lives and careers of Holt, Sgt. Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) and detectives Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) and Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio).
Holt’s saucy civilian assistant, Gina