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[seekingferret]

Hey, let me post about media I'm actually enjoying for a change!

Brooklyn 9-9 started off funny but imperfect, and it has gotten better since the start as characters have fallen into their grooves. The Andy Samberg/Andre Braugher dynamic is wonderful... with time, I think Braugher's Captain Holt has the potential to be like Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock, a senior statesman whose gravitas is more than the show deserves but who manages to fit seamlessly in the world of the show and make everyone around him funnier.

They've managed to take male/female buddy cop UST and turn it on its head with the relationship with Santiago, who probably will end up with Peralta in the endgame and I don't really think I'll mind. The show has already articulated their mutual attraction, and it has rejected a relationship anyway for sound reasons- Peralta completely does not deserve Santiago, and they both know it- while enacting a character arc that suggests Peralta may be able to grow into that relationship.

Meanwhile, Rosa and Terry are absolutely hilarious and so far they haven't pushed the Boyle jokes too far.

At the moment, I am watching three comedies: Parks and Rec, HIMYM, and this show. Parks and Rec I have more overall affection for because I've known the characters for longer, but that the moment I've been enjoying individual episodes of Brooklyn 9-9 more. HIMYM is just the disaster I can't look away from.

Comments

[zandperl]

I have to say I'm at a point in my life where I'm really sick of romance plots, resolved or un. This started before I returned to grad school, probably as a result of being in a steady relationship for a decade at that point, but it's only gotten worse since being here and being surrounded by people who are continually in and out of relationships, or else are whining that they aren't. Sometime in college I decided my solutions to questions like "Oh noes, I don't know if ze likes me" and "Oh noes, I don't know if I like zim" were things like "ask zim if ze likes you" and "ask zim out," and that worked out really well for me, so I've basically lost all sympathy for people whinging about these things.

Relatedly, recent personality tests I've taken indicate that I'm much less empathetic than I used to be, but I think that's mostly caused by having been a union leader. Most of the problems people brought to me were things that they could've solved themselves, but they really wanted someone to hold their hand while doing it, or else someone to do it for them. A waste of my time.

[seekingferret]

I'm pretty certain you wouldn't like the Peralta/Santiago plot. Basically Peralta is a competent, perceptive male officer who is emotionally in arrested development and acts extremely childlike, and Santiago is a competent, perceptive female officer who tries to bury her feelings a mile deep to keep from getting hurt.

And pretty clearly they are both attracted to each other, but just as clearly Santiago has no interest in dating Peralta because he's not capable of an actual adult romantic relationship.

So Peralta subjects Santiago to a continuous stream of low level sexual harassment- asking her out, commenting on her clothing, making fun of other men she dates- because he is basically a child. And ordinarily this would annoy me, but there are some mitigations here:

1)There's no laugh track, so it's not like the viewer is being explicitly told that Peralta's sexual harassment is funny
2)Santiago always says no very clearly
3)The joke is thus always at Peralta's expense, not at Santiago's expense. He is the one who comes out looking immature and mean, and Santiago does not come off looking bitchy for saying no.
4)There are a huge number of procedural shows with a male/female partnership with unspoken Unresolved Sexual Tension being used as a major portion of their relationship chemistry... everyone knows that eventually they will get together, but dragging it out keeps the viewers on the hook. I appreciate that from the beginning, Brooklyn 9-9 has acknowledged the chemistry and, as you put it, had Peralta just ask Santiago out.

And most importantly, 5)The main arc of the show for Peralta is that under the mentorship of Andre Braugher he is being steered toward greater responsibility and maturity. So the show's arc seems pretty clear that when Peralta stops being the guy who sexually harasses Santiago, then she'll be able to finally reciprocrate his romantic interest in her. And on those terms I can live with that being the show's romantic endgame. It is by no means why I'm watching the show, but it doesn't make me dislike the show.