Fox’s beloved show Brooklyn 99 was a police, procedural sitcom that ran from 2013 to 2018. The show was met with critical acclaim during its five years on air winningGolden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and Emmy Awards. The Washington Post called it “one of the funniest, most important shows on TV” and long after its series finale it has remained a staple in many households.
In Season Five, the 14th episode of the show is called “The Box” and features guest actors Sterling K. Brown and Romy Rosemont. The show is what’s known as a “bottle episode” meaning it is filmed with an extremely limited set and cast in order to cut costs. Bottle episodes are a strategy by production in TV to save time, labor, and money by pulling the story out of a “bottle.” This allows them to then subsequently allocate the saved budget towards bigger things and production values.
“The Box” takes places over one night in the Brooklyn precinct with Jake (Andy Samburg) and Holt (Andre Braugher) interrogating a dentist (Sterling K. Brown) who is the main suspect behind the murder of his business partner. The interrogation takes several unexpected turns when the dentist is able to predict their interrogation strategies to deflect all accusations and even trick the pair into making blundering mistakes.
The episode of Brooklyn 99 was met with high viewership, massive ratings places like The A.V. Club, and widespread, critical acclaim with many considering it to be the best of the entire series. Vulture wrote of the episode:
‘The Box’ gets far with a simple, but effective, structural approach to its interrogation. A lot of the first act has Jake and Raymond sequestered together as they formulate theories and bounce off of each other before they let Davidson into the equation. Holt is also eager to get his hands dirty again as he misses this aspect from his detective days, and Peralta knows an interrogation works better with two people so they can get some sort of Rush Hour/good cop, bad cop dynamic going on.”
For his performance in the episode as the dentist Phillip Davidson, Brown was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
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