How ‘The Good Place’ Became an Antihero Antidote

I really like The Good Place however I think the show missed an important opportunity by making Chidi, the intellectual of the show, a non-American black man. Look at all the criminal and anti-social roles African-Amrtican men get cast as - or maybe if they manage to grow to 6'10" or 320 lbs they will show up on your TV in an athletic role. But, until very recently, there hasn't been much visibility on TV of black man as educated sophisticated intensely moral leaders. So finally such a great role comes along and it's going to played by a black man - except he is absolutely foreign to the African-Amercan experience. Why is that? They do have a few minor male African-Amrtican characters on the show - but to have a black man in such a visible position, leading by virtue of his intellect and high sense of morality and not virtue of his physicality and the deliberately male him a non-African-American is just a blown opportunity, on my opinion.

The writer doesn't give Tony Soprano his due. He was a layered persona, not all "monster," at least showing genuine compassion for animate. Who else would stay up all night with a sick horse?

"Side-splitting" is an exaggeration and newcomers shouldn't expect belly laughs. However, the show is constantly delightful.

This is by far the most brilliantly, cleverly and above all intelligently written sitcom since "Frasier," It's seeded throughout with Easter eggs (groaner puns in the names of the shops in various reboots of the faux-Good Place/actual-Bad-Place village, pop culture and very current events references--most recently the Jaguars' embarrassing loss to the Titans). I cannot for the life of me understand why the warmed-over "Will & Grace" reboot--with cartoonish cheap-shot writing that dishonors the original--is garnering accolades and "The Good Place" is repeatedly shut out of even nominations...unless it's part of the general dumbing-down of TV entertainment that spilled over into the 2016 election.

One of the best shows on TV. I wish the seasons weren’t so short. Everyone of the cast is perfect!

i've been trying to get friends to watch "The Good Place" from the beginning for a while now. No takers that I know of, and I can't send them this review, it gives too much away.

To a lesser extent, "Parks and Recreation" and "Brooklyn 99", Schur's other two network sitcoms, are also about becoming better people and fundamental decency. Sure characters like April Ludgate, Ron Swanson, or Jake Perolta don't start out as being bad people like the characters in "The Good Place," and they don't strive for self improvement so overtly, but it's hard to deny the growth that these characters exhibit over the course of their respective shows.

Don't forget Janet. She starts out perfect, then becomes less perfect as she develops human failings like jealousy and denial. Yet as Janet becomes less perfect, she becomes more lovable and somehow more of a good person. It's the fact that she has to deal with her own flaws that turn her from an automaton to a person with moral agency.

I love "The Good Place," but to clarify the sins of the foursome: Eleanor has spent years hurting and cheating people. Tahani has wasted money and social capital that she could have used for good causes. Jason was a petty criminal. Chidi was so paralyzed by indecision that he hurt people around him and failed to do good. They don't deserve an eternity of torture; they are more likely candidates for a purgatory. And that's sort of what they get: a place where they can see the errors of their ways and try to learn to be deserving of heaven. "The Good Place" does cater a bit to the Nerd Nice Guy in the sense that Kristen Bell and Jameela Jamil are two of the most beautiful women around. I'm waiting for a show in which an impossibly hot guy loves an intelligent woman not in his league.

It's a brilliant show, one of the few so absorbing that I don't multi-task while watching it. It manages to be meaningful and thoughtful while also bringing--and landing--the jokes so quickly that you can't look away.

Great article. The Good Place is the best and most refreshing thing on television for a long time. Fantastic writing, performances, and direction. Ted Danson is crushing it. What a lovely celebration of the human condition.

Not only is being good hard work, but it requires people to think. In a world where thinking and reasoning seem to have gotten a bad rap, it's great to see a show hail those traits as positives (with the caveat that you don't want to end up like Chidi and become paralyzed by indecision). The show also puts forward what should be an uncontroversial maxim: we should be good. Yet people who try to be good are often denigrated and disparaged, which is one of the challenges of being good: doing the hard work despite being put down. I watch shows like "Mom" and "The Good Place" because it's way more interesting to see people considering consequences and trying to improve than just succumbing to their basest instincts.

"The Good Place" is my favorite show since, ironically, "Breaking Bad." I believe it may be the best comedy ever made. It's hilarious, witty, unpredictable and actually meaningful. "Dance Dance Resolution," the second episode of season 2, may be the best episode of television ever made. That's a strong statement, but it has everything, plus it burns through literally centuries of plot in 22 minutes. But you have to watch the entirety of the series to that point to appreciate it. If you haven't done so yet, you have a treat in store.

"The Good Place" may be the smartest show on TV since "Monty Python." (The image of eternal damnation as being locked in an empty room with nothing but a stack of New Yorker magazines - you know you'll never read them all, and they just keep coming - is genius.) But it's also about time we evolved from the cringe humor spawned by The Office (UK) - great but done to death since. "The Good Place" has charm, wit, and Ted Danson, whose performance is so funny and oddly graceful it's, well, heavenly. They take so many chances on this show, it feels like they have to fall off the tightrope soon. But please, Judge - not for a while longer.