Exciting Casting Shake Up on 'BK-99'

Cue that catchy theme music, this is news worth getting excited for. According to Deadline, Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller, better known to fans of Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Hitchcock and Scully, respectively, have been promoted to series regulars. (It was announced last month that the Golden Globe-winning would be back for a second season on Fox.) That's especially great news for the bumbling, strange buddies Hitchcock and Scully considering they probably wouldn't get promoted in their own precinct, on account of their being terrible at their jobs, and being all-around gross, and spending most of their time recalling their glory days in the '80s. Plus, more on-screen time for these two will allow the writers to explore their sad, strange, and mysterious backstories.

But the real reason why this is good news is because Brooklyn Nine-Nine is such a strong ensemble effort that doesn't work without all the characters. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is one, big, hilarious dysfunctional family, and Hitchcock and Scully are the weird uncles who take their shirts off at Thanksgiving dinner or throw thumb tacks in the air or are estranged from their own kids.

It's hard to imagine Brooklyn Nine-Nine without Hitchcock and Scully, much like it's literally hard to imagine what Parks and Recreation would have been like without Chris Traeger. Rob Lowe was promoted to series regular in 2010, and while he and Rashida Jones (Ann Perkins!) are no longer on the show, the course of the series would have felt entirely different and much less healthy without them.

While we have yet to fully see if Matthew Goode's recently-announced stint as series regular on The Good Wife will ultimately be a good thing (sorry), there have been some very successful promotions from recurring guest star to series regular over the past few years. Mike O'Mally brought some unexpected, and much-needed gravitas to a struggling Glee as Kurt's dad (he even earned an Emmy nomination for his work on the series); Lauren Cohan (better known as Maggie) was promoted on The Walking Dead during a time when we began to actually get invested in the characters again; and can you even begin to imagine what Breaking Bad would have been like without Jonathan Banks' Mike Ehrmentraut (a performance that, rightfully, earned him an Emmy nod as well) from Seasons 3-5?

Of course, getting the bump to series regular doesn't always spell character development or necessity (case in point, the lovable, but arguably misused Adam Pally as Peter on The Mindy Project). Or, worst case scenario, you get the title/role of a lifetime like Cristin Milioti did for the final season of How I Met Your Mother only to...well, now you know. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, you better not kill off Hitchcock and Scully in the finale just so Jake and Amy can inevitably wind up together!

Image: Fox