Consummate cops

31 October 2014 - 09:24 By YOLISA MKELE
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
POLICE PRESENCE: Andre Braugher and Andy Samberg, third and fourth from left, are the axles around which 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' spins.
POLICE PRESENCE: Andre Braugher and Andy Samberg, third and fourth from left, are the axles around which 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' spins.
Image: FOX

Working under a new boss can be as much fun as learning to clean hubcaps under the tutelage of Roald Dahl's Mrs Trunchbull.

A fondness for "getting things back on track" through the draconian insistence on having everyone work at 100% is enough to make you want to emigrate to communist Russia.

Spearheaded by Andy Samberg, the action police comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine explores this thorny issue while asking: ''How does one manage a boss with a near Jesuit obsession with the rules and little in the way of facial expressions?"

Set in the fictional 99th precinct of the New York Police Department in Brooklyn, the single-camera series revolves around a dysfunctional team of detectives who are given the gift of a new captain.

Played brilliantly by Andre Braugher, Captain Raymond Holt is the cold and seemingly robotic dose of order and discipline the precinct has been lacking. His emotions range from fury to joy, but his facial expression and tone of voice never deviate from frigidly indifferent.

This is in stark contrast to the precinct's most talented and troublesome detective, Jake Peralta (Samberg). As in Hot Rod, Celeste, Jesse Forever or pre-2012 Saturday Night Live, Samberg plays a goofy but well-meaning idiot.

Swirling around the relationship between Holt and Peralta are the usual gang of misfits and weirdos who make for great TV. The show's second season picks up where the first left off, with Peralta in the middle of an undercover operation that pokes fun at every conceivable Italian-American stereotype.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is best watched with a cold beer after a bad day at work. Its sheer silliness will, at least temporarily, help you forget that tomorrow you have to go back to the office and the homicidal maniac who signs your cheques.

If you have an employer whose rear end radiates rainbows, then you'll enjoy it with a smile.

Season two of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Tuesdays at 7pm on Vuzu Amp (DStv114)

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now