The Good Place on NBC

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!

That was a masterfully-paced sitcom episode :D

favorite episode so far, Janet is one of my fav characters in recent memory

2 month break after tonight's apparently? Disgusting.

@KenTremendous
Hi the 8th episode of season 2 of The Good Place airs tonight. It's the last one for 2 months because of football. 8:30 NBC. Ok bye.
3:02 PM - 2 Nov 2017

I can't wait for the holidays to come so I can sit down and rewatch this entire show.

cancel football + renew the good place imho

I've always hated football but this is too far

i love football but fuck this

DEREK

also i love the absolute genius move of using chidi’s obsession with ethics to drive the farce

Yes and no. I kinda feel Kristen Bell, who is a comedic acting genius, has been sidelined this season. We needed more flashbacks to Elanor's life before death...

Not really. The flashbacks were a device to let us know what these characters did to merit a spot in the Bad Place; now that we know, continuing to flash back doesn’t give us anything other than funny vignettes and think this show is being more ambitious than that.

If anything, they should continue flashing back on Michael and show how more of how he ended up being susceptible/amenable to learning from humans. It’s clear he’s not like the other demons just from the elaborate lengths he went to in creating the neighborhood; was he always different or did something spark imagination in him? If the latter, is it something they could expose the other demons to and get more allies?

Jameela Jamil has now said that Tahani is modeled after a real life person whose name she won't divulge, but apparently they know each other.

Which is probably a perfectly safe thing to do, since there's no way a real life Tahani would watch an American sitcom.

flashbacks were a device

An average viewer tuning in to season 2 would be utterly lost. Devices are useful in episodic TV.

but the episodes are chapters, so it’s very strongly implied viewers shouldn’t start at chapter 14

for a second I thought Eleanor had dropped the first "binch" on TV

i too am a total smoke show

^ so good

not skin

So tell me Chidi, how do ethical philosophers feel about murder?