Angie Tribeca: The Complete First Season

Angie Tribeca, created for TBS by Steve and Nancy Carell, is the 21st-century answer to Police Squad and Sledge Hammer!, serving up a parody of modern police procedurals. Rashida Jones is Angie Tribeca, a hard-case lone wolf LAPD cop who is assigned a new partner named Jay Geils (Hayes MacArthur). The pair spend the season dancing around their mutual attraction while taking on high-profile cases involving blackmail, art theft, and illegal pet ferrets smuggled into California. They also go undercover on an airliner where Angie's competitive sister is a stewardess, and infiltrate a prison where a gang of British thieves have almost impenetrable accents. The character names are a hodge-podge collection of pop culture references—in addition to “Jay Geils” (think: J. Geils Band), fellow officer DJ Tanner (Dean Cole) is named after a Full House character, the coroner is Dr. Scholls (Andrée Vermeulen), and their flinty boss is Chet Atkins (Jere Burns), who barks out every line, no matter the situation. This kind of comedy demands creative lunacy, deadpan delivery, and a rapid-fire barrage of gags to succeed and Angie Tribeca delivers, from its crazed sight gags to its nonsensical non sequiturs. The series also features an impressive lineup of guest stars, including Lisa Kudrow, Gary Cole, James Franco, Jeff Dunham, and Bill Murray. The season ends on a cliffhanger that spoofs the whole idea of season-ending cliffhangers, complete with romantic confessions in the midst of defusing a bomb. Compiling all 10 episodes from the 2016 debut season, extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)