We can’t think of one workplace comedy, aside from maybe Abbott Elementary, that didn’t need some time to find itself during its first, or even second season. The pilot of 30 Rock was painful. The first seasons of both The Office and Parks and Rec were awkward and look even worse in light of how both got retooled after those seasons were over. Even Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s first season was a bit bumpy. Speaking of B99, a new Brazilian sitcom is very reminiscent of that show, even if it isn’t isn’t quite as good as its American counterpart as yet.
Opening Shot: “TIJUCA. RIO DE JANEIRO.” We see the dense buildings that make up the district and lots of traffic. Then a motorcycle blows past a man on an e-bike, complete with tassels on the handlebars.
The Gist: The man on the e-bike is Suzano (Leandro Hassum), who is starting his new job as chief of the 8th Precinct, in the very active Tijuca district. He’s coming from a rural district elsewhere in Rio de Janeiro State, and he doesn’t expect his welcome to consist of being pinned by his lead detective, Inspector Mantovani (Luciana Paes), when his tiny gun falls out of a belt pouch.
But once everything is straightened out, Mantovani shows Suzano and his admin, Estevão (Jefferson Schroeder) around the station. Suzano wonders if there’s going to be a greeting party, complete with a banner. What he doesn’t realize is that his squad — Inaê Guerra (Babu Carreira), Alcebiades Pardal (Taumaturgo Ferreira), Rabecão (Digão Ribeiro) and tech expert Kauã aka “Wi-fi” (Cauê Campos) — is taking bets to see just how long he’ll last in the job. It doesn’t help Suzano’s anxiety that every station chief has been killed on the job, except for his immediate predecessor, who was shot during a mafia tussle.
Mantovani’s way of greeting Suzano is to arrange a raid of a warehouse where the mafia has been known to store illegal slot machines. After all, the reason Suzano got the job is because he took down a mob fugitive all by himself. Suzano uses every excuse not to go with the detectives and SWAT team on the raid, because, as he tells Estevão, he’s a complete fraud: He set a warehouse on fire trying to charge his e-bike, which flushed out the fugitive. He “caught” the guy by accidentally falling on him while he was trying to flee.
Suzano turns to the people waiting to talk to a detective; one old lady says she got a faulty teddy bear for her grandchild, and Suzano decides to put Rabecão and Pardal on the case. He then decides to go through the rest of the people waiting to report an infraction, which just fuels the speculation that he won’t last.
But Suzano’s abject fear actually works to his advantage, as Rabecão and Pardal find the teddy bears are linked to the mobsters they’ve been after. And, as Suzano tells Mantovani, the people who were waiting and getting frustrated were actually listened to for once.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Brooklyn Nine-Nine vibes were heavy while we watched Reporting For Duty (Original title: B.O.).
Our Take: Just like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Reporting For Duty is rooted in its characters, and that’s where its humor is going to eventually come from. But unlike its American counterpart, Reporting For Duty doesn’t start off very strong. The first episode leans so heavily on the fact that Suzano is so unsuited to being the chief of a tough precinct like the 8th that all we see is him being chickenshit for the first 20 minutes of the episode. Only in its final scenes do we get the real idea of just how this first season might go.
One of the things that the first episode does a good job of communicating is that the 8th is a precinct that seems to thrive on adrenaline; Mantovani constantly yells “We’re the fucking 8th!” as a rallying cry. What Suzano brings to the precinct, despite being out of his depth, is some humanity. Sure, he’s not really a great cop, and yes, he has an aversion to being shot at. But he still might just end up getting his squad to rally behind him at some point, because he brings something to the squad it has little of, which is actual human emotion. And if, in the process, he happens to stumble upon critical evidence, all the better.
This has all the makings of a workplace comedy that is going to need some time to gel and let us explore all the personalities around the office. And even the best shows in that vein have taken time to become the classics we remember. Will Reporting For Duty be a classic? Who knows? But the end of the first episode gave us some hope that it will find the right tone.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: After Suzano stumbles upon the fact that the mafia is smuggling slot machine graphics boards in the teddy bears, Mantovani is pumped full of confidence. “This is war! The fucking 8th!” she screams. Suzano turns to Estevão and says “I’m going to die.” Estevão gives him a completely in appropriate hug.
Sleeper Star: Luciana Paes is funny as the uber-aggressive Mantovani, whom Suzano seems to be attracted to somehow, despite the fact that she spends most of the first episode criticizing him.
Most Pilot-y Line: “Shit gets real here, and you’re more of a bumpkin,” Mantovani says to Suzano, as her way of apologizing for calling him a “lazy-ass chief” earlier that day.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite a clumsy first episode, there’s potential in the ensemble of Reporting For Duty, as long as the show’s writers start rooting the funny stuff in the characters instead of leaning on gags.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.