Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Animal Control’ On Fox, Where Joel McHale Leads A Group Of Off-Kilter Animal Control Officers

Workplace comedies never really went out of style, but it seems like there have been a rash of them in the past year. A new series on Fox centers on a group of animal control officers in Seattle, who intersperse crazy animal-related calls with work-family shenanigans.

ANIMAL CONTROL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An animal control truck picks up someone from in front of an apartment building. “If you’re going to make me pick you up, I expect coffee,” says Frank Shaw (Joel McHale) to his new partner, Fred “Shred” Taylor (Michael Rowland).

The Gist: Frank and Shred work at an animal control district in Seattle. Frank, a former cop that got canned after he unveiled corruption on the force, hates that he has a new partner, as he likes to work alone, so he actively tries to get Shred to quit. Shred, a former champion snowboarder who wrecked his knee, loves his new job and tries to get Frank to open up, but Frank is having none of it; he boots Shred out of the truck for making lame jokes before they’ve had coffee.

Two other partners start their day. Amit Patel (Ravi Patel), a family man who never goes out, lives vicariously through his single partner, Victoria Sands (Grace Palmer), who lives a blissfully unattached life.

At Frank and Shred’s first call, Frank leaves Shred to do the call himself; as the newbie tries to flush a weasel out of an attic, he accidentally sets the weasel and the homeowners’ couch on fire.

Back at the precinct, the squad’s nervous boss Emily Price (Vella Lovell) has baked muffins, and seems to be fending off the senior officer from another district, Templeton Dudge (Gerry Dee), who comes over to openly mock the weasel fire incident in an effort to go after Emily’s job. The squad wants to protect her mainly because, as Franks says, “she’s easily manipulated,” which is why they have a high-end panini press and are about to get a top-notch espresso machine for the office.

Amit and Victoria go on a call where a dog stood by the side of his owner for days after the owner died. Victoria wonders if this is an opportunity to have another living being in her life, and takes the dog in, but realizes that taking care of the dog would be a severe crimp on her social life.

On another call, to an illegal ostrich farm, Frank takes his meat stick and puts it in Shred’s back pocket, and is highly amused when the big birds chase his partner around. The incident causes Shred to ask for a transfer, where he’d have to partner with the douchey Templeton, but an encounter with Emily makes him reconsider.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Animal Control is a classic workplace comedy along the lines of The Office and Parks and Recreation, but the show it most closely resembles is Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Our Take: Animal Control seems to get what makes shows like B99 successful, even if its format isn’t exactly new. You take a bunch of extreme personality types, make them all a bit off-kilter, mix them together, and have them bonded by a central character that has room to change and grow, despite outside appearances. It’s a formula that creators Rob Greenberg and Bob Fisher (McHale is also an EP) deploy well here.

Are there gags? Sure. Much of it is shown on the calls the officers go on; a python is wrapped around the neck of a Seahawks receiver; ostriches run after Shred; bunnies hopped up on magic mushrooms attack Amir in the second episode. But the already-established chemistry between the close-knit crew in the Northwest Precinct is what drives the comedy.

McHale is in his element as the misanthropic Frank. Again, it’s territory he’s treaded before, as Frank is basically Jeff Winger in an animal control uniform. But it works because we already know how loyal he is to the people in his squad — even Shred — and that there are entryways into his psyche that melts the façade a tiny bit here and there.

The rest of the group is a bit more sketchily drawn, but there’s enough of a base with, for instance, Amit and Victoria, to know that the more we see them in B-plots, the more we’ll get to know them.

Animal Control is the type of show that starts out funny and well-constructed and then, if given the chance, expands out its world. For now, though, just getting to know the people in the precinct is fine with us.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode. There seems to be a flirtation going between Emily and Shred, but Emily is his boss and Shred has a girlfriend, so it may just stay that way. Oh, and when Dolores (Kelli Ogmundson) institutes a bathroom sign-up sheet, she gets names on it like “Connie Lingus” (fake) and “Holden Weiner” (real).

Parting Shot: Frank takes the espresso machine delivered by Holden Weiner, and excitedly tells Dolores, “We’re getting a wine fridge next!”

Sleeper Star: Alvina August plays Dr. Summers, the “hot vet” who works at the district. It’s funny that everyone there, is trying to get with her, but for some reasons the doc has higher standards than that.

Most Pilot-y Line: As he and Shred try to unwind the python from the neck of the Seahawks receiver, Frank asks him for tickets. That feels more like a gag than a character-driven line.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Animal Control‘s first couple of episodes elicited some big laughs and has already established an ensemble with some good chemistry. There’s nowhere to go here but up.

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.