Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Safe House

March 18, 2018 7:02 PM - Season 5, Episode 12

Brooklyn Nine-Nine returns to Sunday nights! Official FOX synopsis: "After Seamus (guest star Paul Adelstein) threatens Kevin (guest star Marc Evan Jackson), Holt devises an elaborate plan to hide him in a safe house, with Jake as his guard. Kevin is miserable as the 99 works overtime to find Seamus and take him down."

Welcome back to the B99 discussion! Looking ahead, we have three more episodes confirmed to air in the next month: March 25, April 1 and April 8.

There are rumblings that this may be the final season for the show, as the ratings are still down (avg. weekly viewers for S05: 1.74 million) compared to last season's mid-season finale high of 3.49 million.

Some of this is due to Fox's schedule finagling, which resulted in a patently ridiculous four-month January-April hiatus last year, as well as a comparatively less torturous three-month one this year, which seems to account for the audience exodus for the entire back half of S04 and first half of S05.

But now that show has been returned to its home for much of Season 2 and 3, the coveted 8:30 Sunday spot after The Simpsons, which ought to be a much stronger lead-in for B99 than its former Tuesday night stablemate (and temporary replacement during the 2017 hiatus...) The Mick.

So who even knows? Will audiences rediscover a still-great show, or is this the farewell tour? Tune in to find out...

posted by Strange Interlude (19 comments total)

"Hello, Kevin. It's me, Raymond Holt."

I've missed this show so much.
posted by Gary at 11:30 PM on March 18, 2018 [17 favorites]

Dear Fanfare,
I am so very happy to have this show back! Marc Evan Jackson is one funny guy.
And now I want to swim in a room full of shredded paper.
Sincerely,
Frayed Knot
posted by Frayed Knot at 8:12 AM on March 19, 2018 [9 favorites]

One of the cable channels was doing seasons 1 through 4, two episodes every day, so I took the chance of picking it up. Now I'm thinking why I didn't bother to watch it when it came out.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:37 AM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

You're going to need some corticosteroids for that pharyngeal fracture!
posted by praemunire at 9:46 AM on March 19, 2018 [10 favorites]

Dear Fanfare,
I liked this episode.
Sincerely,
Paper Chromatographologist
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:50 AM on March 19, 2018 [13 favorites]

I only found out this had come back because I saw this Fanfare post. (Thank you.) They are really not doing a very good job of making the show findable.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:37 PM on March 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

Dear Paper Chromatographologist,
I couldn't agree with you more.
With kind regards,
Pendragon
posted by Pendragon at 1:48 PM on March 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

👍
posted by Marticus at 4:51 PM on March 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

I only found out this had come back because I saw this Fanfare post. (Thank you.) They are really not doing a very good job of making the show findable.

And I only found out by literally doing a weekly search for "Brooklyn Nine-Nine return date 2018" and regularly checking the Wikipedia episode listings to see if anything had popped up on the radar.

(I also use the wonderful TV Calendar web app to see what shows are airing in a given two-week span, but it doesn't have any kind of built in alerts or notifications when a show you watch is returning from a break.)

Fox seems to delight in playing musical chairs with its comedy schedule, and then keeping mum about when certain shows will return (In particular Bob's Burgers and Futurama always seem(ed) to be in limbo during football season.) so people have to resort to internet-stalker tactics to find them again. It's frustrating for sure.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:09 AM on March 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I use the TV Show Tracker app and it notifies you when a new episode comes out. This episode was delightful!
posted by ellieBOA at 7:14 AM on March 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

There were a few posts on facebook along last week. It's safe to say Fox assumes the critical mass of some of their shows fanbase is on social media, and expects that the media push is enough to reach those that aren't.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:15 AM on March 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Dear FanFare,
I have a Hulu account and even it didn't tell me there was a new episode. It's a conspiracy against shows with diversity.

Also, you don't have to sign your posts.

Sincerely,
numaner
posted by numaner at 1:23 PM on March 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

Dear Everyone:
I second everything you wrote about the goodness of the episode and how Fox buries good shows by not mentioning when they are on and then presumably canceling them.
Also, damn, Rosa's hair saving everyone.

Sincerely,
jenfullmoon
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:25 PM on March 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

The whole thread of Nicolas Cage movie references was spectacular, and they capped it perfectly.
posted by jimw at 9:05 PM on March 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

There were a few posts on facebook along last week. It's safe to say Fox assumes the critical mass of some of their shows fanbase is on social media, and expects that the media push is enough to reach those that aren't.

The crazy thing is, I follow the show on Facebook and Twitter and basically never see the posts unless I consciously seek them out, because both sites' algorithms bury pretty much everything I'm actually interested in seeing. Social media promotion is like printing up a bunch of posters at Kinko's and then throwing them into the street, shouting "Fly! Be free!"
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:29 AM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm following just a small number of pages on facebook. I'm guessing Fox's social media ad budget for B99 is higher than most of them.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:19 AM on March 21, 2018

Dear FanFare,
Based on my social media habits, the most effective way of learning news about shows you like is to follow the actors and writers for those shows. They're generally very good about promoting the thing they work their asses off for. So like all 3 of the main stars for iZombie (Liv, Clive, Ravi) will post about new episodes the day off to get you to watch them. And typically, stars themselves have a bigger following than the official show page, so more people will like their posts, making those announcements more visible than the show's post.

I don't follow anyone from B99, but I think I should start.

Sincerely,
numaner
posted by numaner at 1:12 PM on March 22, 2018

Dear numaner,

Great idea. I suggest you follow Stephanie Beatriz (Rosa) on twitter, besides announcing new shows, her feed is also promoting excellent content.

Sincelery,
motdiem2
posted by motdiem2 at 8:31 AM on March 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Or on Instagram! (bonus her dog's Instagram which won't alert you to new B99 episodes but his name is Gouda!)
posted by ellieBOA at 12:59 PM on March 23, 2018 [3 favorites]