What The Rookie Gets Right That Other Procedurals Just Don't

Despite being loosely based on a real-life story, it does not try to maintain a somber mood, and does not shy away from depicting more ridiculous aspects of its characters' lives and work in the police.

So, it stands out among other procedurals as relatively light-hearted, with notable comedic elements.

The Rookie does comic relief exceptionally well. And that's just one expression of one of its greatest strengths. Most police procedurals, like NCIS, FBI, and Law & Order franchise primarily focus on their cases of the week.

And if your main focus is cases, i.e. crimes, that lends itself to serious and humorless tone. The Rookie, however, prioritizes character stories and character development.

It is driven by its cast to a larger extent than is common for the genre. And its cast interactions allow for a good bit of humor.

Sometimes it even plunges into over comedy, as with Season 5, Episode 16, Exposed, which features much of the cast using an open radio channel to discuss their personal problems, then their commander tuning in to scold them for having personal conversations on an open channel, but quickly joining the conversation, and so on.

Most procedurals pretend to be realistic by trying to be serious and somber at all times, which is actually not realistic (an actually realistic procedural probably would be tragicomedy, with criminals whose abject idiocy would have been very funny if only it did not result in dead and injured people, and jaded policemen, using black humor and cynicism to cope with their work).

Even when they focus on their characters, they usually do so by bringing up various tragedies of their past and present. FBI, for example, had an episode, involving Jubal Valentine's alcoholism and his son's possible cancer at the same time. The Rookie, on the other hand, often functions as a sitcom.

There is an established status quo among the cast, which gradually advances from episode to episode.

That makes it much easier for the writers to integrate comedy, as well as other aspects of relationships between the cast, which they might like.