In the time since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, shows dealing with law enforcement, both real and fictional, have been put under the spotlight. Cops and Live P.D. were canceled swiftly in the wake of growing protests over police brutality and now police procedurals across all the networks are starting to reevaluate how they tell stories about cops. Even a show like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is a straight comedy that follows a blundering police force, has had to make changes and according to one of its stars, Terry Crews, it has resulted in episodes being scrapped entirely.
Coming this way via "Deadline", Crews says that series creator and showrunner, Dan Goor, has had to approach the comedy series differently and that 4 new episodes that were planned for the new season, have been completely discarded:
"Dan Goor had four episodes all ready to go and they just threw them in the trash. We have to start over. Right now we don't know which direction it's going to go in."
Brooklyn Nine-Nine wrapped its seventh season back in April and the series was renewed for season eight back in November of last year. Crews goes on to say that cast has had "a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations and we hope through this we're going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year. We have an opportunity here, and we plan to use it in the best way possible."
Showrunner Dan Goor tweeted his support earlier this month for Black Lives Matter and stated that he and the cast had made a $100,000 contribution to the National Bail Fund. You can check out that tweet below:
I feel like just about any show dealing with police officers are having a lot of these internal conversations about how they should dictate the narrative moving forward. ABC's The Rookie said the show will touch on the issue of police brutality during its upcoming third season and I'm sure the other police procedurals spread across the networks will be doing the same. It really is the elephant in the room that they can't really ignore anymore.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which also stars Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Andre Braugher, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, and Joel McKinnon Miller, airs on NBC and there is no official word on when the show will be heading back for eighth season.