The Good Place on NBC

someone opined that janet is god

i don't think that's quite right, but she's obviously something key

also it'd be funnier if mindy were god

i give this week's episode 12 out of 13

Michael’s slow motion home alone-style freakout

felt like this week (and last week to a degree) were a bit of a dip in quality but I can't tell if that's because I'm watching it week to week ratehr than the entire season in one marathon which is what I did in season 1. maybe season 1 felt that way too if you didn't watch it all at once.

Ha, I thought of Munch's The Scream. (Maybe that's obvious.) xp

guys this is all covered fully in my fanfic

Does it have a lot of butt-touching?

I've been on ILX long enough to know that I don't share its sense of humor, borne out by the fact that I didn't find the first season funny at all but have loled a bunch with season 2.

binge-ketchupping soup-to-nuts this past week i was pleased to be struck by something semi-accurate in the most recent ep, which helped explain why I've found the whole thing excellent fun and formally pretty original, while still somehow naggingly familiar

the insight was this: it's a reboot (for TV series) of BEDAZZLED (1967), starring the late peter cook and the late dudley moore, directed by (the not-yet-late!) stanley donen, and one of my dad's favourite films

follow-up insight: well no, it obviously actually isn't exactly -- but it does share some of its tropes, even if it also mixes them up, viz story is a contest of wits between the (or anyway a) devil (cook/danson) and an ordinary human person (moore/bell) over a sequence of reformulations of post-death scenario, which cook/danson sets up to frustrate and torment moore/bell

• technically moore isn't post-death: he's just bungled his suicide when cook turns up, but he's in the pitilessly escape-free faustian space between bargain (seven wishes in return for soul) and the inevitable closer (you never beat the devil), which is also where bell and her chums are. A kind of furiously malleable limbo
• technically is the one who gets to decide when one of his scenarios ends (he blows a raspberry to end it); danson actually makes the executive decision to end bell’s scenarios (but it’s *always* triggered when bell realises they’re not in the good place, so in a way same difference)
• bell has three unchanging chums; moore only really has one, since his suicide and his wishes are all directed towards his success or failure w.the woman played by eleanor bron (“equator bro” thx spellcheck), who I believe appears in all the seven (or six if you agree with moore’s counting heh) limbo scenarios
• cook is THE devil (= lucifer aka satan mekratrig rather even than lucifuge rofocale, belial, abbadon, sataniacha, ashtoreth, leviathan or whoever) where danson is at best A Minor Not-Very-Senior Devil on probation. But both (as the most recent nextflix ep demonstrates) are thinking of challenging the ancient celestial ruling that has exiled them. Cook has collected a billion souls and is therefore in a position to request his case be reviewed per an informal agreement he apparently made with god; danson is hoping to sneak into the (actual real) good place alongside his four victims, when they make their escape.
• This^^^last was what cause me to make the (not-quite) connection – danson-mikey’s serenely deluded arrogance in re his possible entry int heaven suddenly very much reminded me of cook-lucifer’s

Other points: I find the Tahani character a bit of a slog (partly bcz jameele jamil is inexperienced as an actress and slightly over-signals her character now and then, or at leas did at first; partly bcz the US tin ear for UK culture is often just a bit too BLOOD SAUSAGE). On the other hand I think manny jacinto as jason is terrific and adorable. While I know that how d’arcy carden’s janet comes across is a deliberate part of the show’s joke — i.e. that her flat cheerful biddability is a bit wearing on everyone else — it is also a bit wearing on the viewer (well, this viewer).

Anyway, A+ and A++ since the second series began (when it fully came together, and danson's plastic creepiness suddenly made sense)

s/b jameela sorry

What? Janet is perfect. Hush your mouth.

haha i hadn't read the entire thread when i posted: if i had, i might well have muffled that particular personal-reaction truthbomb a bit

tahani is def my least favorite

Just realized yesterday that Janet is the same actress who plays the female Soulstice trainer on Broad City.

O
M
G

you’re right!!!

indeed - and in further broad city crossover, the guy who plays the "I'm going to the gym" character in s2 of this is also in an episode of s1 of broad city as a bisexual hunk who's terrible at improv

one of the things i really (disproportionately) love about this show is the way janet appears and disappears. they have a cgi budget, they could magic her in and out of frame with some crazy wonky effect, but they chose to use jump cuts instead. it fits so much better with the show's pacing and comedy timing.

so so true, i don't understand how this move is still so funny every single time

her exclamations upon appearing are delightful

I think the series has tremendously improved by trading in the "Will Eleanor learn to be better person?" narrative with "Will Eleanor remember to bring Mindy coke next time?"

I find that pov pretty hard to understand tbh.

Afaict, it would be more accurate to say that the show has traded in "Will Eleanor learn to be a better person?" for "Will all four humans and Michael learn to be better?" (with a side of "Will Eleanor and Chidi finally get together?").

bringing Mindy coke is more important because she’s stuck in limbo with us viewers

you are all 8’s

ugh ted danson is amazing

bringing Mindy coke is more important because she’s stuck in limbo with us viewers

Ha, well, I am open to the idea that would be an improvement if it were the primary narrative focus. I just don't think it's what the series has done.

*that it would be ... if this were

oh it’s a sideline and running joke I am fully committed to

love how they introduced the will-they-or-won’t-they thing and immediately showed us the unexpected one in the next episode

eleanor losing it over the toothbrushes and crying into a plunger was great

Lol, both otm.

the condemned four stumbling into redemption, with the strategic flashbacks, makes me think another shoe is going to drop

guys what if this is the test to see if they get into heaven by saving ted danson
a'la albert brooks' Defending Your Life
which everyone who loves this show who hasn't seen should go watch IMMEDIATELY

otm

also O_O

i like it

Mindy is actually God pulling a gag

i'm afraid they've kinda painted themselves into a corner where every season now is gonna have to have a shylamanian TWIST just to keep the game afoot
Season Five: it turns out the whole experience is an acid trip jason's having at a Marshmello concert.... OR IS IT?!?!?!?!?!1111??!?!?!

mike schur talks about that a little bit in this interview:
http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/the-good-place-michael-schur-season-2-premiere-interview.html

I thought you guys did such a great job with the first season. I really didn’t see that ending coming at all. Now that you’ve done a big twist, do you feel the pressure of people expecting more?

Yeah, I do. It’s a double-edged sword, right? I think the reason we pulled off the twist in the first season without a lot of people guessing is because nobody was expecting it. Now we’re in a situation where everyone’s expecting it and so the double-edged sword is, do you try to come up with one big twist that’s as shocking? Or do you not do that and risk betraying the DNA of the show?

The show threw everything up in the air and blew up the whole world at the end of the first season and that’s a little bit why people like it, I think. Or at least some people like it for that reason. So you want to honor that. You don’t want to suddenly make it a totally different show, but at the same time, part of the reason why they liked it is that they didn’t know it was going to happen. If you play right into their hands and do another big twist, that might be the least shocking thing you could do.

It’s very odd. A lot of this is very simple and straightforward and probably doesn’t need to be explained by me, but I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m in this brand-new world. People who work in this space, who work in science-fiction shows and genre shows and speculative fiction, they would listen to me talking right now and they would be so bored they could barely keep their eyes open. This is what they deal with all the time. For me, it’s all new and interesting and exciting. It’s like an interesting intellectual puzzle to try to work through.

that's interesting. They really are gonna have to stick the landing this season or they're gonna shoo away their core audience.

maybe. but the cast is so good i think even if they didnt quite stick the landing ppl would come back - it’s the benefit of it being primarily a comedy
the story helps, but it’s not why you stay

I don't think they have to blow up the world of the show more than once, tbh. Lost did this with the flashing forward/"We have to go back!" thing and the show still worked after that (though the ending stunk).

It's kind of remarkable to me that anyone could like this show and be into the show and yet has not yet seen Defending Your Life.

My family and I have watched about half of the first season, and I love the cast enough that I don't mind that I almost never laugh. Apparently, without seeking out spoilers, I learned it's about to get really good though, maybe by episode 6?

I find that pov pretty hard to understand tbh.

Eleanor's growth as an ethical being is overdetermined (of course she's going to learn to be more selfless), but the route from where she starts to where she ends is kind of unconvincing, self-abnegating, and not all that funny IMO. But when her lessons get reset, we're liberated from those constraints so that we can indulge and embrace in her crapitude.

I recommended it to one of the bar staff in my local. She liked it, but now every time I see her I get subjected to complaints about having to wait for another episode.

I loved Parks & Rec, and I absolutely adore Ted Danson, but I watched the first two episodes of this and I thought it was really, really dumb. Giant killer lady bugs or whatever? Ugh. Should I stick with this?

Like I said, I've seen maybe the first five episodes of season one and haven't found it funny (just like season one of Parks & Rec, too), and in fact it almost plays like it should have a laugh track but doesn't. But apparently it gets much better in the back half, or so says my daughter.

Yes Evan you should stick with it!

No, everyone talking itt about how much they like it and enjoy the characters and find the writing clever and the jokes hilarious are lying to each other to trick you Evan

man tough crowd

i don't remember a big change in quality midway through s1, so maybe you just are dumb and don't like it

I haven't seen like 2/3 of the NBC sitcom shows and I think it's pretty funny.

lol wasn't questioning that people love the shit out of this show. They obviously do. But as a person who hates that fake-y, candy-colored, internet-baiting Community aesthetic I'm just wondering if I'd be able to enjoy it, too

All I can say is if you think giant killer ladybugs or whatever are dumb, then you're exactly on the same page as the writers. The Good Place? More like this place sucks!