The Good Place on NBC

i forgot who it turned out gossip girl was. was it georgina?

Clearly it's Tahani.

https://tvrecappersanonymous.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/laughing-dan.gif

lol

Finally got a friend's Hulu password, tried to watch via PS4 and it would only play a couple seconds at a time before buffering. Admittedly I have shitty internet, but other services were working fine.

watching this season via Hulu and it takes at least an hour to get through each 19-minute episode with buffering, seizing up on ads, and crashing altogether

hulu apps are all pretty shitty in my experience (on ps4, appletv, and roku). maybe if you pay for NO commercials.

Glad it's not just me

it works fine if you pay for it outright.

I haven't had any trouble? I've been streaming off the NBC site on a Macbook Pro. I did watch the last one on Hulu, actually.

Also streaming off NBC on a Macbook Pro -- sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's glitchy as hell.

Oh, recalling now that I got a lot of glitches one day and wondered if the directors were doing something really avant-garde with jump cuts.

Ha. I realized that sometimes it would work after restarting the app, and either run perfectly or be unwatchable. So now I'm all caught up! I was a little sad on Mindy's behalf that she didn't get her giant bag of cocaine.

Also I had the same reaction as Maura, that Janet is glitching out due to jealousy that is unfamiliar and unprocessed.

We've been watching this as a family and I think we have one episode left in season one (I know I've missed an ep or two). Last night my wife and I finally figured out what was throwing us off, and we think it's just that we've been both spoiled by high-budget, very cinematic cable dramas and, perhaps, jaded by the fake documentary format, and this is just the opposite of both of those things. Very bright and over lit, not cinematic, the characters default broad (esp.Jason and Tahani), looks like it's shot in a back corner of Disneyland and feels like it has laugh track beats built in (just in case). And yet we really like Bell, Harper (who my kids recognized from nu-Electric Company) and Danson, and the whole enterprise is so charming and good natured (if only fitfully funny) that we don't mind watching it. I suppose that's all one can really ask of a network sitcom.

There's a nu Electric Company??

The mockumentary format never made sense for most of the sitcoms that use it. Worked for UK Office.

I know it's not really the point you were making Josh but I just imagined a gritty cable style version of TGP and oh man it was not pleasant

There's a nu Electric Company??

Lin-Manuel Miranda was on it. He did a super-embarrassing rap about silent E being a ninja.

sadly nu-electric company sucks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvTv6KzLczQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HZwkdx29gg

dying at Janet's reactions to the basketball

also LMM's Electric Company appearances have pretty much ruined my ability to enjoy his Broadway work

So it's not all bad, then.

i think hamilton is like Cats to me. i get why its popular but it ain't for me. the songs seem as hokey as an electric company rap. but maybe i am still getting over the school talent shows i had to sit through for two years where i heard basically the whole musical. hamilton AND adele kinda ruined for me.

I've seen Hamilton twice and loved it both times, even more the second time, so ymmv.

And yet we really like Bell, Harper (who my kids recognized from nu-Electric Company) and Danson, and the whole enterprise is so charming and good natured (if only fitfully funny) that we don't mind watching it. I suppose that's all one can really ask of a network sitcom.

I couldn't disagree more, I think The Good Place is leagues better-written, is intellectually deeper, and has more laughs than any high-gloss prestige cable comedy I can think of. I guess maybe The Comeback was better-written and Party Down had more laughs (though PD wasn't on a prestige network iirc!) I watch it and I'm like "I can't believe I'm watching NBC."

Party Down was on Starz, which is in the limbo between prestige and second-tier premium channel that gives you enjoyable trash

The Carmichael Show and Superstore are at or near the same level, both are (or recently were, in the case of TCS) on NBC

Just for Party Down, The Girlfriend Experience and Spartacus, Starz is fine by me.

I could only think of the latter when I was trying to remember what I'd watched on Starz, but agreed on TGE

Starz also showed Torchwood: Miracle Day, which started out great. (I'm pretending the ending didn't happen.)

How the heck did that end up on Starz?

I'm not sure, to be honest. I assume something weird happened with licensing and BBC America.

here's my contractual plug for black sails (though i still haven't watched the last season)

I never watched it but they get definite props for the move they pulled last season(?)

I couldn't disagree more, I think The Good Place is leagues better-written, is intellectually deeper, and has more laughs than any high-gloss prestige cable comedy

Maybe? What do you consider high-gloss prestige cable comedy? Fleabag? Difficult People? You're the Worst? That sort of thing? Don't know why chose those, but imo prestige cable comedies tend to default wince-inducing dramedy these days, and The Good Place is refreshingly silly compared to that kind of stuff (despite its innately heavy themes). But even if I were to concede your relatively low bar, I still think it looks and feels so much like a generic sitcom that its attributes are somewhat hampered. At least in season one. But hey, I'm sticking with it, so as I admitted, there's definitely something there. I just think that "something there" might only be a product of its being about as good as it can be on network TV, even if I rarely think it's great. Maybe I'd put it slightly on a level with Happy Endings, which hovered in that same (er) purgatory?

In other news, my wife and I watched the first episode of "Ghosted" last night, and talk about low network comedy bar. Compared to that "The Good Place" is pure art.

I guess I don't know what you're looking for from a sitcom if your biggest complaint about it is that it's a sitcom.

Laughs?

Guyaquil OTM.

Enjoying this show enough that I watched the entirety of season one yesterday, thank you ilx

I was sort of hoping Superstore would actually be about Superstore. Seems OK so far. Carmichael Show is obv great.

Not done with this ep yet, but it looks like all our Janet theories are converging.

Oh my, unexpected new wrinkle!

"Wait, you two are sleeping together?"
"Only when we're done having sex!"

convergence otm

i’m going to get it girl
get what?
unclear. I’ll get everything, just in case.

also, i spied “pudding vat” on the store sign and thought to myself “i tawt i taw a pudding vat” and then there was a wide shot and MY DREAM CAME TRUE I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH

"It's sort of a glass half-full/glass stops existing in time and space sort of deal"

"Just walk it off."

the zooks!

Season one finale was pretty clever, and a funny meta-metaphor for sitcoms, so consider me on board for season 2.

Hi guys, I'm broken!