NBC announced an updated fall 2020 premiere schedule, pushing back Brooklyn Nine-Nine to 2021.
Originally scheduled to debut this fall, NBC moved the Season 8 premiere to early next year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic's devastating impact on Hollywood production. Other shows that were also delayed include Manifest, New Amsterdam and the new Law & Order spinoff, Law & Order: Organized Crime.
That does not mean NBC will be left empty-handed when the fall TV season comes around. New seasons of The Voice, Superstore, This Is Us, Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Law & Order: SVU and The Blacklist are all scheduled to debut throughout October and November of this year.
The delay will give the police workplace comedy time to address and adapt its portrayal of officers and detectives in the wake of the death of George Floyd, the shooting and paralyzation of Jacob Blake and the larger Black Lives Matter movement. Back in June, showrunner Dan Goor threw four episode scripts into the trash, according to series star Terry Crews. "We have to start over. Right now we don't know which direction it’s going to go in," Crews said at the time. His co-star, Andre Braugher, also said that police need to be "portrayed much more realistically, in terms of this: The convention ... that police breaking the law is okay because somehow it's in the service of some greater good, is a myth that needs to be destroyed."
Still, Andy Samberg, who stars as Detective Jake Peralta, is confident the series can adapt to the current reality. "We're all in touch and kind of discussing how you make a comedy show about police right now, and if we can find a way of doing that that we all feel morally okay about."
Despite being a show about police officers, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has not shied away from the mistreatment of African Americans by officers of the law. Season 4's "Moo Moo" followed Sergeant Terry Jeffords (Crews) as he was racially profiled by a white police officer in his own neighborhood.
Created in 2013 by Dan Goor and Michael Schur, Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars Andy Samberg, Andre Braugher, Stephanie Beatriz, Joe Lo Truglio, Terry Crews, Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller. The show will air its eighth season on NBC in 2021.
(Via Deadline)