Seriously?! Taxi Brooklyn

I just saw an ad for a series and I was completely convinced it was some kind of gag. Please, tell me it's some kind of gag.

I also think it's something like a movie with Queen Latifah and someone.

The premise, such as it is, according to the hilariously unbelievable commercial - bizarrely young, attractive detective with a pixie cut is in trouble because she crashed three department cars. She meets cute a sassy black cabbie who gets arrested and offers her a deal - he'll drive her anyplace she needs to go, if she helps prove him innocent! Quick cut to them driving, her in the backseat, as he slams on the brakes and she yells at him.

I just... This was greenlit? This got past how many meetings? What else was in this pilot season, 'Hydrant Happenings,' a reality show aiming a camera at a hydrant?

It's a joke, right? Please. Oh look, it's not.

mirandashell said:

It's a Feegle from a Luc Besson film:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_(1998_film)

but they have changed a lot of it. In fact, they are only using the basic premise. And to be fair, the Besson film doesn't carry the same politically charged casting.

Besson, as you probably know, can get quite surreal in his films. The Fifth Element, for instance, gets pretty mad in parts. I've not seen Taxi but the synopsis sounds like one of his.

I'm really not sure how the TV company will play it straight though......

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I see. Interesting. Or terrifying, I'm not quite sure which. The ad didn't seem to be anything remotely connected to any aspect of anything Besson's I've seen, nor did they seem to be really playing it straight, though I don't know if such a thing is possible.

This is the NBC page for it, with a little trailer clip thing.

mirandashell said:

Sorry, I meant more a 'straight comedy' as opposed to a surreal comedy the way Besson did it.

I love Luc Besson.

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Oooh, sorry, I misunderstood. I really don't know what they're even thinking it's meant to be. The ad was really kind of indistinguishable from an SNL fake commercial in which the commercial itself would be serious.

I looked for a youtube because I suspected the nbc wouldn't be viewable, but didn't find one, darn. The only thing I could find was a credit sequence. Sorry. I'm pretty sure this mess will circle the Internets in time.