The Good Place Will Take You to a Good Place

The newest face to join NBC’s intriguing line up is The Good Place with Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop - yes, she actually acts instead of just doing Samsung commercials with her husband (I was surprised too).

The story follows Eleanor to The Good Place - every religion’s equivalent to Heaven - after her inconvenient death chasing a bottle of margarita mix into oncoming traffic.

The catch is that Eleanor doesn’t belong in the good place, but she’s not going to rat herself out. She conspires with Chidi - an ethics professor from Senegal who struggles with helping Eleanor lie and cheat her way into an afterlife she doesn’t deserve.

From an audience perspective, this show has everything you could hope for: dramatic irony, ethical dilemmas, and consequences - all while exploring a question, where do we go when we die?

The creativity behind the show makes me hopeful for its future success, not to mention the production it has behind it. NBC has an impressive track record when it comes to good ideas; shows like Community, Superstore, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and The Office are renowned for their unique premises and contributions to comedy.

But let me ask you a question: are you familiar with any of the titles that I just listed? Maybe one or two - thanks to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler - but the rest you are likely to have never heard of before.

Comedy, similar to history, is written by the victors. What people determine to be funny is based on the top comedians of the time. Famous comedians will often reflect on the path that has brought them to where they are - and they talk about this struggle against what is established as funny and the kind of funny that they want to offer to the world. What makes The Good Place important - along with Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office - is that it’s comedy taking a risk.

If I can bestow anything upon anyone, it’s this: watch The Good Place. Sure, it has a good premise, good dialogue, good casting, good writing, good production - it’s good, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it.

Watch The Good Place because you care about where comedy is going. Watch The Good Place because you care about how ethical dilemnas are illustrated to the masses. Watch The Good Place because you want these ethical dilemnas and this comedy to actually make it to the masses. Watch The Good Place because why not?

Give it a shot - you might actually enjoy it.