---
title: "Angie Tribeca"
year: 2016
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/angie-tribeca"
fi1m_id: "angie-tribeca"
imdb_id: "tt3597790"
tmdb_id: 61969
wikidata_id: "Q18352354"
fi1m_score: 66
critics_score: 64
critics_reviews: 8
published: "2026-10-07T19:28:22.802761+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-07T19:28:40.768351+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Angie Tribeca (2016)

Created by Steve Carell, Nancy Carell · 25m · MPA TV-14 · Comedy, Action & Adventure, Crime

## Identity

Angie Tribeca

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/angie-tribeca
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** angie-tribeca
- **IMDb ID:** tt3597790
- **TMDB ID:** 61969
- **Wikidata ID:** Q18352354
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3597790/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/61969, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18352354

**Fi1m score: 66** · Critics 64 from 8 reviews

*In a sentence:* Forty jokes a minute, roughly half of them land, and the dog gets most of the good ones

> Steve and Nancy Carell’s spoof of the American cop show fires jokes faster than it can aim them, and Rashida Jones’s unsmiling detective holds it together. Watch two episodes and you will laugh; watch five in a row and the jokes start to blur.

## Synopsis

Detective Angie Tribeca (Rashida Jones) has outlasted a long line of partners and would rather not have another. Her lieutenant, Chet Atkins (Jere Burns), gives her one anyway: Jay Geils (Hayes MacArthur), who shares her gravel voice and her total seriousness and keeps nearly kissing her at crime scenes. Also on the squad are DJ Tanner (Deon Cole) and his partner David Hoffman (Jagger), who is a dog, and the medical examiner Monica Scholls (Andree Vermeulen). Each 25-minute episode is a police procedural in which every stock line is said in earnest, every instruction is taken literally and every sign in the background carries a joke.

## Review

Steve and Nancy Carell have made a cop show in which nobody is allowed to know they are in a comedy. *Angie Tribeca* takes the American police procedural, the gravel-voiced detective, the lieutenant shouting about the mayor, the coroner breaking bad news over a body, and plays all of it straight while the jokes pile up at the edges of the frame. It is in the line of [*The Naked Gun*](https://film.one/film/the-naked-gun) and does not pretend otherwise. At 25 minutes an episode it is the right length for the idea. About half the jokes land, which is a better rate than it sounds.

Rashida Jones is the reason to watch. She plays Tribeca as a detective who has had a long line of partners and buried most of them, and she delivers the stock lines of the genre with the flat conviction of someone who has never heard them before. She does not wink. When she takes an instruction literally, Jones lets the misunderstanding sit on her face for exactly as long as it needs. Hayes MacArthur, as her new partner Jay Geils, matches her note for note, and their running gag of near-kisses interrupted by gunfire, telephones and corpses is the one joke the show never wears out.

Around them the Carells have built a precinct with a gag on every desk. Jere Burns shouts as Lieutenant Chet Atkins and is best when the shouting is about nothing at all. Deon Cole’s DJ Tanner has a partner, David Hoffman, who is a dog, played by a dog called Jagger, and the show’s most reliable device is to cut to Hoffman doing something a detective would do, filling in a form or taking a call, with no comment from anybody. Andree Vermeulen’s Monica Scholls announces causes of death that no one could have survived long enough to be killed by. Kiersey Clemons, as Maria Charo, is given less than the others and makes what she can of it.

The directing roster is long and mostly of a piece. Steve Carell directs some episodes himself, Peter Segal, who made the third *Naked Gun* film, directs others, and you would struggle to tell them apart, which is the point. The house style is the well-lit, locked-off frame of network drama, so that the sign in the background is always in focus and the faces in the foreground are always serious. Ludwig Göransson and Nathan Matthew David supply the thudding pulse of a weeknight procedural and keep it entirely straight, so that a dog climbing into a squad car is scored like a raid.

Here is where it went wrong for us. We laughed hard at the pilot, out loud and more than once, mostly at Hoffman and at Jones’s refusal to notice anything strange about him. By the fourth episode in a sitting we realised we had stopped laughing and started counting, and that the second and third jokes in every scene were there to fill a quota rather than because anyone had thought of a good one. The misses arrive before the hits have had time to land. The Zucker films let a gag breathe for a second before the next one; the Carells and their large writers’ room have not learned that yet.

There are four seasons of ten episodes, and the second tries something the first did not: a mystery that runs across the whole run, to be solved by the end of it. The reviews so far prefer that season, and we can see why, since a case that lasts gives the jokes somewhere to go. The guest stars are asked to play it straight. Adam Scott appears as a surgeon, Gary Cole as a Professor Everett Lamereau, James Franco as a Sergeant Eddie Pepper and Sarah Chalke as a Mrs Parsons, each as though auditioning for the show being mocked.

Next to *The Naked Gun*, which it plainly loves, it has more jokes and less patience. Watch one episode at a time, after something serious, and let the dog see you out. Four in a row and you will start to feel like the lieutenant.

*Fi1m score 66, published 7 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics are warm, if not unanimously so, about this straight-faced spoof of police procedurals. The praise clusters on the commitment of the thing: a cartoonish, relentless mockery of cop-show clichés played entirely straight, and on Rashida Jones, whose deadpan lead most reviews single out. Several of the stronger notices come from critics who stayed into the second season, where they find the serialised plotting and the ensemble, Heather Graham included, give the gags somewhere to go.

The reservations are about thinness. The two negative reviews, from Variety and Vulture, find the jokes well worn and the sight gags too lightweight to add up to anything, and Radio Times predicts it will split comedy fans down the middle. The spread is wide, from the low thirties to the nineties, and it falls along a clear line: the critics who enjoy sight-gag comedy are delighted, and those who do not see no reason to stay.

## Straight answers

**Is Angie Tribeca worth watching?**

*Angie Tribeca* is worth watching an episode at a time by anyone who likes the deadpan police spoof, and we scored it 66. Rashida Jones's unsmiling detective and a dog named David Hoffman doing paperwork carry it, but about half the jokes miss, and four episodes in a row turns laughing into counting.

**How long is Angie Tribeca, and what is it rated?**

*Angie Tribeca* has episodes of about 25m and is rated TV-14 by the MPA in the US. It is a comedy and action & adventure series.

**Where can I watch Angie Tribeca in the US?**

*Angie Tribeca* is not on any streaming or rental service in the US at the moment. It is available in 2 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Angie Tribeca, and is it suitable for children?**

*Angie Tribeca* has no UK certificate and carries a US TV-14 rating, which suggests it is best for teenagers and up rather than younger children. It is a comedy that plays the police procedural straight, so the gunfire and corpses are gags rather than anything frightening, and the dog gets more screen time than any blood.

**What should I watch after Angie Tribeca?**

After *Angie Tribeca*, try [*The Naked Gun*](https://film.one/film/the-naked-gun-from-the-files-of-police-squad) (1988, Fi1m 88): The parent of this kind of thing; Leslie Nielsen never once lets on. Then [*OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies*](https://film.one/film/oss-117-cairo-nest-of-spies) (2006, Fi1m 76): Jean Dujardin’s spy is an idiot and nobody tells him; the deadpan is immaculate.

### Reviews we read (8)

- **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (A-): Travers gives the series a strong review, praising its committed, cartoonish parody of cop-show clichés. He especially singles out the carefully crafted jokes and memorable guest-star moments, while wondering how long the relentless pace can last. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/review-angie-tribeca-is-surely-best-when-binged-but-shirley-youll-laugh-no-matter-what-30546/)
- **The AV Club**, LaToya Ferguson (80/100, inferred): Ferguson finds the season’s shift toward serialized storytelling surprisingly successful and says the show makes a strong case for viewers to keep watching. She particularly praises its detailed genre parody and Heather Graham’s comic portrayal of the seemingly perfect Diane Duran. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/angie-tribeca-proves-that-some-women-can-have-it-all-1798188244)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (65/100, inferred): Goodman finds the series silly and enjoyable when viewers are in the right mood, though its uneven jokes will not work for everyone. He especially praises Rashida Jones for committing fully to the straight-faced performance. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/angie-tribeca-tv-review-856348/)
- **Radio Times**, Ellie Walker-Arnott (50/100, inferred): Walker-Arnott says the surreal series will divide comedy fans. She singles out its cartoonish, relentless mockery of police procedurals. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/comedy/silly-star-studded-cop-spoof-angie-tribeca-will-divide-comedy-fans/)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (35/100, inferred): Lowry finds the spoof energetic at first but ultimately too thin and overfamiliar to reach its comic potential. He praises Rashida Jones and Hayes MacArthur for getting mileage from their interrupted almost-kisses, while finding the jokes well worn. [Read](https://variety.com/2016/tv/reviews/angie-tribeca-review-rashida-jones-steve-carell-tbs-1201671706/)
- **Vulture**, Margaret Lyons (35/100, inferred): Lyons finds the series lightweight and its humor intensely divisive, though viewers who enjoy sight-gag comedy may love it. She praises a classroom gag as the pilot’s best scene, but complains that the jokes never cohere into a meaningful whole. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2016/01/angie-tribeca-humor-is-subjective.html)
- **Den of Geek**, Daniel Kurland (90/100, inferred): Kurland says the second season improves on the first and delivers a consistently hilarious, more fully realized show. He especially praises its ensemble cast and the way serialized plotting ties the individual episodes into a satisfying larger mystery. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/angie-tribeca-season-2-review-spoiler-free/)
- **Paste**, Keri Lumm (8.2/10): Lumm gives the pilot a positive verdict, saying it turns the slapstick cop-show idea into something zanier. She praises the casting of Rashida Jones as the star. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/angie-tribecamp4)

## Details

- **Created by:** Steve Carell, Nancy Carell
- **Creator:** Steve Carell, Nancy Carell
- **Director:** Ira Ungerleider, Brennan Shroff, Steve Pink, Dan Beers, Rashida Jones, Michael Patrick Jann, Matt Sohn, Rebecca Asher, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Tom Magill, Payman Benz, Paul Bernard, Jon Pollack, Martha Coolidge, Amy York Rubin, Peter Segal, Richie Keen, Phill Lewis, Steve Carell
- **Writer:** Ira Ungerleider, Marisa Pinson, Mathew Harawitz, Nathaniel Stein, Scott Hanscom, Shepard Boucher, Alex Jenkins Reid, Jeff Astrof, Ryan Walls, Juliet Seniff, Ava Tramer, Jessica Conrad, Steve Carell, Yael Green, Haley Di Guilio, Jason Belleville, Sean Lavery, Greg Bratman, Nancy Carell
- **Music:** Ludwig Göransson, Nathan Matthew David
- **Cast:** Rashida Jones as Angie Tribeca; Hayes MacArthur as Jay Geils; Bobby Cannavale as AJ Geils; Deon Cole as DJ Tanner; Andree Vermeulen as Monica Scholls; Jere Burns as Chet Atkins; Kiersey Clemons as Maria Charo; Jagger as David Hoffman
- **Runtime:** 25m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14
- **Release (the US):** 17 January 2016
- **Genres:** Comedy, Action & Adventure, Crime
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg6kyaSUCTU

## Where to watch in the US

Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check.

Also available in: FR, GB. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *The Naked Gun* (1988), Fi1m 88: The parent of this kind of thing; Leslie Nielsen never once lets on. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-naked-gun-from-the-files-of-police-squad.md)
- *A Touch of Cloth* (2012): The British version of the joke, with John Hannah and darker crime dramas to mock.
- *OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies* (2006), Fi1m 76: Jean Dujardin’s spy is an idiot and nobody tells him; the deadpan is immaculate. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/oss-117-cairo-nest-of-spies.md)
- *Children's Hospital* (2008): Does to the medical drama what this does to the cop show, in even shorter bursts.
- *A Shot in the Dark* (1964): Peter Sellers’s Clouseau, certain of everything and right about nothing; the model for Tribeca.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/angie-tribeca