Tuesday TV Touchbase: Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Hi there! It’s time for the Tuesday TV Touchbase where I take time on a Tuesday to touch base on stuff I’m watching on TV. 

Did everybody get that? 

Good!

The focus of today’s post is Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

I’ve been a big fan of the Nine-Nine for years now and I remain grateful that NBC rescued this show from the rubbish bin where Fox has unceremoniously tossed it after 5 seasons. 

But I’ve been aware of a sense of disquiet as I’ve watched the 7^th season so far. Is Brooklyn Nine-Nine spinning its wheels? Is the show’s best days behind it?

Is it, alas, time for Brooklyn Nine-Nine to go?

The recent episode that tried to revisit the glory days of the Jimmy Jab Games seemed to suggest it had reached that point.  It was too frantic, too disjointed, too loud, too much of a mess.  Whoever had the idea of Charles Boyle channeling The Greatest Showman for half an hour should be hurt.  It was trying too hard.

Which brings us to last week’s episode entitled, oddly enough, “Trying”.  

Holt is trying Jeffords’ patience. Raymond Holt is still in uniform walking a beat and Holt is bored, walking the same beat around  the same neighborhood day after day after day.  Terry Jeffords holds his ground and refuses to capitulate to Holt’s petulant pleadings to be given a different beat.

Meanwhile, Jake and Amy are trying to get pregnant. Repeated efforts by Jake to impregnate Amy does not result in any impregnation. 

The half hour episode takes place over the our course of several months. Raymond Holt reluctantly accepts the value inherent in the tedium of his regular beat. He’s building relationships with the residents of the neighborhood. He’s even learned to speak Russian thanks to his daily encounter with a Russian woman.  It is a valuable lesson for Holt as well as Jeffords who made a good command decision, stood by it and didn’t fret over it. 

The results for Amy and Jakes are not so positive. They’ve tried getting pregnant the Amy Way (lots of calendars and organized binders), the Jake Way (the total opposite of the Amy Way) and even God help them the Hitchcock Way (the less said about that plan, the better). The thing is they are trying too hard. They need to stop trying, just relax and see what happens.

The last scene of the episode is after a presumably more relaxed session of sexual intercourse with Amy holding a pregnancy test stick.

Let me guess? Now that they’re not trying so hard, Amy’s pregnant now, right? Nope!  Still not pregnant.

And the end. 

For a couple looking to start a family, the actual process of actually getting pregnant can be a process fraught with problems.  It can be frustrating to actually want to get pregnant while some teenage girl can get knocked up just standing downwind from a guy.  There are so many things than can plague a couple. Fertility may be hindered by illness or stress. Or perhaps the man or the woman will not be able to produce children for any number of reasons. Whatever is going on with Jake and Amy, Brooklyn Nine-Nine does not seem to be shying away from this.

I still want to look to Brooklyn Nine-Nine for laughs but after 7 years with these characters, I don’t need more “Jimmy Jabs Games” and Charles Boyle channeling his inner Hugh Jackman. That’s trying too hard. After 7 years, I’ve invested too much in this gang at the Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I don’t need to see them reliving their old wackiness. I want to see where they go next. As Jake tells Amy, Brooklyn Nine-Nine needs to stop trying to be it’s old self. We need to go with flow and see where that takes us next.

If Brooklyn Nine-Nine can do that, it won’t be time to go.

Up next on the blog:

Duke Vs. Carolina II. Is my wife speaking to me?

Onward.  My review of the new Pixar movie.

The story of a road trip for my daughter and I with an unexpected discovery.

Superman. The worlds knows he’s Clark Kent. How is that working out for him?