The Good Place - Season 1

Creator: Michael Schur

Cast: Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, Jameela Jamil, William Jackson Harper, Manny Jacinto, D'Arcy Carden

Year: 2016

Episodes: 13

'The Good Place' provides a comedic alternative to the stereotypical afterlife and follows immoral Eleanor Shellstrop who has been unintentionally sent to the wrong post death destination. Desperate to stay, she attempts to continue her facade of being a good, wholesome person.



Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) doesn't belong in the Good Place, a Utopian afterlife in which everybody who lived a near perfect life is destined to go. However, Eleanor is the complete antithesis to all these residents, and was intended to go to the Bad Place instead. But seeing how much of a paradise this world is, she becomes adamant to remain at all costs, with the assistance of reluctant ethics lecturer, Chidi (Jackson Harper), who helps her maintain her facade and tries to teach her to become a more moral person. But Eleanor careless and arrogant behaviour begins to cause devastating consequences within the Good Place and it becomes harder and harder to conceal her identity.

This series offers a very interesting concept about life after death, which feels oddly unexplored within the film and television industry, at least from this completely unique perspective which is essentially a humanistic version of Heaven and Hell. All residents are partnered with their 'Soul-Mate', someone who is destined to be their lover, even if they were never together during their time on earth. There are actually a variety of laws applied to this fictional existence which can seem rather intriguing to watch because it feels somewhat intricate, although unfortunately, a lot of these notions in which the Good Place abides by never feel fully fleshed out or as developed as they could have been, such as the infamous Bad Place is never truly explored, other than the appearance of some of its leaders. Nevertheless, it does bring up questions about the afterlife and what it will be like.

Being a comedy show, the humour starts off as being consistently funny and frequent, having a joke inserted about every 10 seconds, after you finished laughing from the last one. Additionally, all the character's unique personalities had their own personal quirks which were funny - to begin with. By the time the series reaches half way through, the supposed uniqueness of the characters has been milked dry and rarely offers anything new to laugh at, but instead just repeatedly uses similar traits to form jokes which have already been used which is draining and the series unfortunately loses the excellent script writing it once had. This isn't to say that the series loses its energy because it does keep moving forward, spawning new dilemmas and consequences which keep landing the main characters in various degrees of trouble. This is the main source of motivation which keeps the show going, and to its credit, the plot is frequently engaging, especially due to the lovable characters.

Despite the overuse of their personalities to construct more jokes, there is no denying that they are all massively memorable and have the audience invested in them. Unfortunately, the cast list is limited and they never feel fully developed, despite occasional flashbacks to their lives on earth. By the end of the series, there has been significant arcs to most of the characters within the show, but still there isn't any major development given to them, merely just their reactions to what occurs. There is decent chemistry between them all and as said, they are all unique and lovable, but don't always peak the audiences interest for the entirety of the series. Added to that, there feels a gross ignorance for most other people who live in the Good Place - for the vast majority of the series, they are all but ignored and get little more than a couple of lines, leaving the script to construct subplots with only 5 or 6 characters at hand. To their credit, the actors do a tremendous job of bringing all their characters to life (no pun intended), and are fairly plausible, despite their regularly eccentric nature.

The plot itself does occasionally feel predictable (although there are several praise worthy twists which do happen every now and then) and relatively weak, repetitive and sometimes leaves the audience feeling a little less invested than they should be. The emotion never really hits the mark, and never reaches its potential - there are enough characters to instigate some strong emotion between them, and although this is frequently attempted, it doesn't do justice to what is fully possible. In terms of its repetition, the show regularly reinforces Eleanor's anomalous existence and how she is continually trying to become a better person, and the subsequent toll this takes on Chidi. This prevents the show from attaining any true depth which it is fully capable of getting, which is disappointing; however, the show is addictive and somewhat satisfying to watch which captivates viewers nonetheless. It is surprising how, despite its flaws, the show remains absolutely engaging.

Ultimately, although the screenwriting is far from perfect and is flawed more often than not, which is definitely disappointing for the shows blatant potential, the characters are all helplessly lovable, the plot surprisingly engaging and the concept continually fascinating. There are many improvements this show can and hopefully will make for its second and rumoured third season, but it is still hardly an awful series by any means, and remains heart warming and entertaining nonetheless.

Verdict: C+