The mid-2000s was the golden age of the sitcom. From The Office, Parks and Recreation, to Community — just to name a few — situational comedy reigned supreme on television screens all over the world.
Slowly but surely, as streaming services diversified the range of television offerings available at our fingertips, the sitcom fell off its perch. However, with series like Leighton Meester and Luke Cook‘s cosy murder mystery Good Cop/Bad Cop hitting the 2025 scene, the beloved sitcom might just be making a comeback.
Like many millennial-Gen-Z-cusp-sitters, sitcoms were a major influence in the development of my own sense of humour in my formative teenage years. As I watched Good Cop/Bad Cop to prepare for my interview with Meester and Cook, the tone piqued a sense of very welcome nostalgia.
“It’s funny you say that because the pilot was written in 2009. So it’s been around for a while and then when they picked it up, they rewrote all the episodes. So it does have the vibe of a yesteryear sitcom. I’m glad you picked up on that,” Sydney-born Cook admits to PEDESTRIAN.TV.
As for what led to the downfall of sitcoms? Cook thinks it was a gradual change.
“I think that comedy got preachy, just to be frank,” he states.
“There’s a rawness in most shows nowadays. It’s like, everything’s real. Looking at James Bond is a great example. There are no more quips or one-liners. It’s gritty. It’s serious. A lot of things have gotten gritty and harsh and this show is not that. We’re dealing with murder in a light way.”
Good Cop / Bad Cop is a crime procedural which follows an estranged brother and sister duo as they follow in their father’s footsteps to solve murders in the quaint, small town of Eden Vale.
Meester plays Detective Louise “Lou” Hickman, an incredibly driven cop and natural-born leader with a uniquely disarming charm. Conversely, her younger brother and recently minted detective Henry Hickman (Luke Cook) is the odd one out. Instead of leading with his charm and social skills (he has none), he goes by the book in an awkward, specific kind of way.
While playing the specific dynamic of an older sister and younger brother might be tricky for some, for Meester and Cook, it felt pretty natural.
“We got along very naturally but the brother-sister bickering is just great writing,” Cook admits.
Although Eden Vale looks like any old town in America’s mid-west, the series was actually shot on the Gold Coast. Truthfully, it took some work to make the Goldie look effortlessly American.
“We drove up to Mount Tambourine and Conungara, which is a misty, heavily wooded mountain town so it was kind of already set for us,” the Gossip Girl icon explains.
“There were some tell-tale trees in the back that looked kind of tropical so they had to get out of frame or in some cases chop away.”
In other cases, they had to fake it until they made it by adding a fake mountain or two and driving on the right side of the road on cornered-off Aussie streets.
“They had to put a fake steering wheel on the left-hand side of the car and drive on the right-hand side. I just drove a regular right-hand side-of-the-road car truck. It was giant though, American style ones that I needed a box to get into.”
Also, as it happens, that truck was the same one used by Ryan Reynolds (AKA the husband of Meester’s Gossip Girl co-star Blake Lively) in Fall Guy, which was also filmed in Australia.
“That should be on IMDb fun facts,” quips Cook.
For both Meester and Cook, who both live in Los Angeles, landing the lead roles in Good Cop / Bad Cop meant temporarily relocating their families to Australia. As a result, the series features some fun little family cameos — most notably, a cameo from Meester’s husband Adam Brody.
Although the long-term It couple are famously private, the “Good Girls Gone Bad” singer shared that it was a joy working with her husband on set.
“It fit, it worked. He’s just part of the [on-set] family. There was this kind of weird, even on the page, weird quirky character and when he read the script he was like, ‘I’d like to play that’ and then we roped him into it. It somehow worked.”
But the Nobody Wants This heartthrob didn’t just bring his quirky suspect to life on screen, off-screen he was very particular about his character’s stylings.
“I think he had a kerchief and the dingle-dangles, or fringe on the cowboy jacket,” added Cook. “Very well done, Adam”.
For Cook, who has had supporting roles in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and (my personal favourite) in Hacks, his leading role in Good Cop / Bad Cop feels like his long-awaited big break. And he says, being able to have that career-making moment back in Australia feels incredibly special — especially after he almost didn’t audition for the eccentric character of Henry.
“I didn’t want to audition at first. I just didn’t think it was worth my time because I thought somebody else could play it better. And they were struggling to find this guy and I was like ‘Fine, I’ll audition’.
“My agent was like, come on, they really want to see what you can do. I did it. They’re like, ‘That’s the guy’.”
“I’m so glad I did. It’s such a big role for me, and it’s also exactly what I want to do with my career, play these kinds of characters. Plus, it’s one I didn’t think I would play very well, but then found out I that I could.
“It’s always nice to surprise yourself.”
You can watch episode one of Good Cop/Bad Cop on Stan.
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