12. The Good Place
I've talked about The Good Place a fair bit on here, and actually covered a lot of what I love about it before, so apologies if this feels like repetition on my part, but I just couldn't leave out Michael Schur's colourful, deceptively clever and consistently hilarious sitcom in this list of my favourites. The Good Place takes a lot of what Schur had established on most of the shows he'd worked on before, but with a much stronger focus on the concept and the world that immediately made it stand out. Much like Parks and Rec and Brooklyn Nine Nine before it, The Good Place is a show about small people in a big system, doing the best they can in the face of larger obstacles within that system, but unlike Schur's previous work, this one is set in the afterlife, where the rules are looser and the show has free reign to go in whatever direction it wants. The first season takes a while to lead up to that level of freedom, mainly keeping as a more conventional sitcom with a fantasy setting, but it's when the show absolutely upends everything it spent a season building in the thirteenth episode that the fun really begins
The concept of this show is so good that just about any take on it would have yielded great results, but The Good Place goes the extra mile and leans on the ethical implications of a sitcom set in the afterworld, which gives it an edge that I think a lot of fantasy/comedy hybrids stop just short of achieving. But by centering the show around a clear(ish) system of morality, the show is able to glide into existential territory quite gracefully. From episodes about the Trolley Problem and non-linear time to ongoing discussions of the inherent selfishness of the human condition, The Good Place is packed to the gills with creative references to heady philosophical concepts, but takes them all seriously and engages in legitimately thought-provoking discussions on the extent to which we can actually become better people
Most remarkably though, the show's philosophical leanings support some utterly incredible gags. It would have been easy for a show like this to lean too far into its ideology and forget the laughs, but The Good Place has enough jokes to last two Bearimys over. The character riffs are as strong as you'd expect from a dab hand like Schur, but it's impressive how little of a divide there is between the comedy and the philosophy. Instead of separating the two in a neat pattern of levity and existentialism, the show lets the two overlap, watching what happens as they bleed together and riding the comedic chaos of that blend straight into the damn stratosphere. The laughs come fast in The Good Place, and the show excels at broadening its world out in all the right ways and always finding the right joke to accompany it. They hit the mark nine times out of ten, and the misses never last long enough for the show's comedy to stagnate. And as the silliness bounces off the philosophy, the show is able to carve out a real sincerity that, at its most earnest, makes it incredibly moving, too
Obviously none of that would be possible without the characters, and the core six in The Good Place are absolutely key to making it work. All of them are perfect, and there's no point singling any of them out, mainly because the show uses the variety of its cast to absolutely killer effect. All of them are coming at this from a different perspective, and the show can cover that much more ground comedically and philosophically as a result. Each character has a comic voice that's so specific to them, and even though they all fit into broad archetypes, the show's focus on each person's journey and how they lived their respective lives really lets it hone in on what makes each of them tick and ensure that every character beat rings with as much specificity as possible
But I think my favourite thing about this show is the way it lays out a clearly defined goal from the word go. This is a show about its cast trying to become better people, and even as it complicates their journeys and throws obstacles and variables in their path, it keeps that same set goal all the time. Obviously there's no one-size-fits-all rule to sitcom structure but I think forgoing the breezy, indefinite antics that most of its ilk go for and keeping its characters moving towards an ultimate goal gives The Good Place so much more urgency. Each of its beats resonate that little bit more because they all seek to move the characters towards or away from their goal. Every episode is crucial to the story in some way, and its the feeling of constantly moving forward that makes this show great
And even if it does drag somewhat around the third season, the fact that the show takes care to celebrate every small moment of progress means that nothing feels like filler. And that's what the show is: a monument to progress, to looking at the vast landscape of moral uncertainty and trying to be a little bit better with every decision. The show's structure matches its philosophy, and so the plot progression becomes key to the big narrative beats, something that naturally transitions to the ending's focus on what we ultimately hope to achieve out of life. I've mentioned this before but I was really unsure of how a show focused on constantly upping its own creativity could possibly find a fitting ending, but by leaning into the notion of finality, The Good Place is able to deliver an ending that feels both satisfying and organic, which is a hell of a balancing act to make look so effortless
So yeah, I've named an episode of this as my favourite of the 2010s and mentioned it on nearly every end of year TV special I've done so obviously it was going to make an appearance on here at some point, but can you honestly blame me? It's robust, intelligent comedy with a big beating heart and an on-point cast that constantly finds new ways to up the game every time it looks like its ace has been played. It commits fully to improving every aspect of itself with every season until it comes out as the most purely polished American sitcom that's debuted in the last decade. And while Schur is still making quality work, the ending of The Good Place sees him working at such peak creativity that it's undeniably going to take some time before it's topped. Anyone capable of making Whenever You're Ready can take it sleazy for the rest of time as far as I'm concerned
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