Saturday 29 March 2014

Brooklyn Nine-Nine S1x11 "Christmas"

In a break from the usual drama TV reviewed for The Fictional Hangout, I look at the latest episode of the award-winning comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine to have aired in the UK, entitled "Christmas", starring Andy Samberg.





I was talking in my Person of Interest review yesterday about the problems with UK channels getting USA ones months after the original airdate and the problem with that is that you tend to get episodes like Thanksgiving and Christmas in shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, in March. But thankfully, Christmas appears to be the last of the themed episodes, so we should get back to the good stuff next week.

I only watched the first two episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but gave up halfway through the second. However, positive reviews and friend recommendations convinced me to give it another try and starting with S1x09 "Sal's Pizza", I'm glad I did, because this show has been the most consistently funny ones on TV right now, and whilst Christmas wasn't quite up to the level of Sal's Pizza, which pitted the Brooklyn Nine-Nine team against the Fire Brigade, Christmas was still a good episode that saw Captain Holt receiving a number of death threats, with Jake (Andy Samberg) being assigned to protect him.

The characters are one of the strongest parts about this comedy show - they all have their own fun elements. Andy Samberg's Jake Peralta is the main star, a talented but childish Detective, and allows for some incredibly funny gags. Captain Ray Holt, the homosexual Commanding Officer of the 99th Precient, is always good, and others like Joe Lo Truglio and Melissa Fumo impress as the respective Detectives Charles Boyle and Amy Santiago. So unlike other half-hour comedy shows where not all the characters are interesting and fun to watch, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has made sure that it never gets dull with there being an entertaining cast each week.

This week, the focus was on Jake Peralta (no surprises there) and Captain Ray Holt - as death threats were assigned to Holt. Right from the amusing gag at the beginning where Boyle fights Santa Claus in front of small children, Christmas is still a lot of fun even if there is no laugh-every Minuit like earlier episodes have been. It's a fun, entertaining and amusing way to spend a Thursday afternoon before Person of Interest, and with plenty of episodes left, this episode makes the smart choice not to have an entirely Christmas themed episode, with the opening gag - as well as the attempt by Amy to get the perfect Christmas Card for Captain Holt, are the only Christmas-related incidents, with the majority of the episode focusing around the Death Threat plot, which is handled well.

On the whole then, Christmas is a fun episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it's not its strongest, but its far from its weakest, and proves that the show has consistently improved since the early stages of the season. Count me in for next week's episode for certain.

VERDICT: 3.5/5



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