First of all, let me say that the 8 is because the quality of the show is great. It's genuinely funny, although it's funny in that sort of Rodney Dangerfield sort of way. The humour comes from the delivery of one-liners at appropriate times. Often emulated, but rarely duplicated in terms of its humour value. They must have had an exceptionally strong team of comedic writers. Being that it only uses one type of joke, though, it can get a little repetitive and predictable.
The setup is fairly interesting, trying to humanise a police force by focusing on the dead or moribund breed of cop in the US that is the ethical policeman trying his best to see that justice is served in a fair and polite way.
But for me the most interesting part of this show is the real substantial diversity of the cast. The core casts consists of a black cop, a Japanese cop, an old cop, a Hispanic cop, an ethnic white cop (Polish), and the requisite WASP-looking one along with two of the wives of members of the precinct. Ethnic (or geriatric, in the case of Fisch) qualities are sometimes subtly, sometimes crudely inserted, but certainly none are taken to the level of caricatures.
Before this time, ethnic characters were mostly invisible on TV. After this time there would be more diversity on TV, but they would be segregated onto their own shows and ethnicities outside of the main cast of the show would usually only appear as bit caricatures until probably the 2010s. Not that it's any better, as from that point what appears on TV is basically a whitewashed cast that is visually multi-ethnic but really just acts the same and has the same culture.
Now this show wasn't perfect, but it really worked. It had charm, humour, and heart and did it with a genuinely diverse cast - without ignoring or whitewashing their differences. I wonder why the concept didn't catch on after this. Society would probably be farther along if this type of thing had been done more often. Good try from Hollywood, but they should have been more responsible with their power, which they have always misused.
Honourable Mentions: Superstore (2015) picks up where Barney left off, 40 years later. It's not the same, though. The characters are of different ethnicities, but they might as well all be of the same ethnicity. Ethnic differences are rarely, if ever allowed to be shown and they're basically all whitewashed. Funny mainstream media still doesn't get it or doesn't care after all these decades.
The setup is fairly interesting, trying to humanise a police force by focusing on the dead or moribund breed of cop in the US that is the ethical policeman trying his best to see that justice is served in a fair and polite way.
But for me the most interesting part of this show is the real substantial diversity of the cast. The core casts consists of a black cop, a Japanese cop, an old cop, a Hispanic cop, an ethnic white cop (Polish), and the requisite WASP-looking one along with two of the wives of members of the precinct. Ethnic (or geriatric, in the case of Fisch) qualities are sometimes subtly, sometimes crudely inserted, but certainly none are taken to the level of caricatures.
Before this time, ethnic characters were mostly invisible on TV. After this time there would be more diversity on TV, but they would be segregated onto their own shows and ethnicities outside of the main cast of the show would usually only appear as bit caricatures until probably the 2010s. Not that it's any better, as from that point what appears on TV is basically a whitewashed cast that is visually multi-ethnic but really just acts the same and has the same culture.
Now this show wasn't perfect, but it really worked. It had charm, humour, and heart and did it with a genuinely diverse cast - without ignoring or whitewashing their differences. I wonder why the concept didn't catch on after this. Society would probably be farther along if this type of thing had been done more often. Good try from Hollywood, but they should have been more responsible with their power, which they have always misused.
Honourable Mentions: Superstore (2015) picks up where Barney left off, 40 years later. It's not the same, though. The characters are of different ethnicities, but they might as well all be of the same ethnicity. Ethnic differences are rarely, if ever allowed to be shown and they're basically all whitewashed. Funny mainstream media still doesn't get it or doesn't care after all these decades.