TV-PG | 4 seasons, 53 episodes | Drama, Romance, Fantasy | 2016–2020
By the time “The Good Place” debuted on NBC in 2016, traditional terrestrial television programming was in its death throes. Scripted shows became the exception instead of the norm with reality shows dominating the prime-time airwaves.
The slow demise of “legacy” programming was long in coming and started in earnest with the arrival of premium cable in the late 1990s. Unfettered by FCC guidelines, premium cable shows included levels of violence, profanity, and nudity previously seen only in feature theatrical films. This took a big toll on hour-long dramas and slowed the quality half-hour sitcoms down to a trickle.
Writer and producer Michael Schur’s résumé includes credits for “Saturday Night Live,” “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation.” He had the chops and bona fides to take chances with any future projects, and he did exactly that with “The Good Place.”
Simple Premise?
On paper, the premise of “The Good Place” is simple. If you led an exemplary life on Earth, you wound up in the Good Place, a bucolic planned community where everyone is happy, goods and services are free, and everything is precisely manicured and impeccably adorned. Had the entire series stuck to this blueprint, it would have gotten real old real fast.
However, before the first episode even ends, the de facto lead character (Kristen Bell as Eleanor) tells fellow new arrival Chidi (William Jackson Harper) that someone made a mistake. She did not lead an exemplary life and, in fact, wasn’t a good person. She doesn’t think she deserves to be in this idyllic place.
A professor of morals and ethics on Earth, Chidi is a bag of nerves, who seems incapable of making the simplest of decisions. At one point in the series, he takes nearly 90 minutes to decide whether to wear a white hat or a brown hat. According to Good Place architect Michael (Ted Danson), Eleanor and Chidi are soul mates. Another benefit of living in the Good Place is that everyone is paired with their ideal soul mate.
Also paired as soul mates are recent arrivals Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jianyu (Manny Jacinto). Tahani is a tall and curvy British socialite with East Indian heritage prone to self-serving celebrity name-dropping. Jianyu is a Buddhist monk who continues his earthly practice of silence into the afterlife. The two couldn’t be more different and are obviously not soul mates.
Whammy Twist
At the end of the first season, Schur and his team of writers toss out a whammy of a twist. It takes the show in an entirely welcomed, different direction, transforming it from mostly cuddly and safe to daring and loaded with constantly shifting dramatic friction.Changing tone and direction so radically and quickly 13 episodes in was a huge gamble, but it had no effect on viewership. For its duration, the series enjoyed consistently high viewer and critical ratings, and it only got better as it aged.
Springboarding on Chidi’s core traits, “The Good Place” puts the accent on morals and ethics, and did so without bringing politics or religion into the mix. For example, Eleanor, in an attempt to make up for her poor behavior on Earth, begins acting differently so that her “worthy credit score” will go up. But it doesn’t.
Eleanor’s not doing this because it’s the right thing to do, but because she’s being selfish. She wants to be perceived as a good person rather than just being good whether someone notices it or not. It’s kind of like apologizing for committing a sin or breaking a law, not because one is contrite but because they got caught.
This is one of many conundrums addressed in the last three seasons, and all of them continually alter the complexion of the overall narrative. The series pulls off the unique feat of staying true to its original concept throughout while still exploring new metaphysical avenues without getting preachy or judgmental.
It portrays humans as they really are: fallible and imperfect but ultimately with the ability to change. They change for reasons that benefit those around them, or for their own benefit, or because it’s simply the right thing to do.
It Ran Its Course
“The Good Place” wasn’t cancelled after four seasons because of poor ratings or because it ran out of viable material. Instead, (I’m guessing here) that is the way Schur planned it. The plot and character arcs were huge and didn’t warrant further exploration. Leaving the audience wanting more with any entertainment vehicle is always the best way to go.To that end, the two-part last episode of the show is among of the best TV finales ever conceived and executed. It clearly shows that Schur (who wrote and directed both) knew how to wrap it all up with rewarding closure.
“The Good Place” was indeed a rarity in TV. It did something different that was both audience-friendly and intellectually stimulating without trying to manipulate the viewer into reacting a certain way. It challenged us to think on our own and decide what is right and what is wrong without being swayed.
