When I started the first season of The Good Place, I didn't expect the series to develop this way. The first season told about a group of four people who unjustly ended up in the “Good Place” – a kind of heaven. Each subsequent season has cleverly added something new to it. Recently I also wrote a review on the last season of The Good Place. In it, I had indicated that The Good Place has an almost perfect ending, something I had not seen coming beforehand.
The first season started with Eleanor (Kristen Bell: Veronica Mars) waking up in The Good Place. It soon becomes clear that she shouldn't be there at all as she was anything but good in her time on Earth. Eleanor finds out that three others have also wrongly ended up in The Good Place. They are the always indecisive philosopher Chidi (William Jackson Harper, The Electric Company), the spoiled Tahani (Jameela Jamil, The Misery Index) who is always extremely jealous of her sister and the somewhat simple Jason (Manny Jacinto, The Romeo Section), who during his life (and afterwards) actually only makes wrong choices.
I thought The Good Place was one of the strongest comedy series of recent years
Overall, the first season of the series is about how they got into The Good Place by mistake and how they try to keep it hidden. The following seasons are essentially about Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason who want to show that people can indeed get better and still deserve a place in The Good Place. Of course the series goes a bit deeper than that, but it is the common thread of the complete series.
The four main characters are of course not alone. There are two other main characters, namely Michael (Ted Danson, CSI) a demon who has a soft spot for humans and Janet (D'Arcy Carden, Barry), Michael's artificially intelligent assistant who knows everything about the entire universe and can make anything possible. If anyone needs anything, Janet will conjure it up.
The above characters also have certain counterparts from the so-called Bad Place who try to make their life (after death) miserable. They try to do everything they can to prevent it from being demonstrated that people are able to actually get better. Throughout the seasons, this provides fun plot twists and there are also regular fun guest roles. The series also always feels fresh and the makers come up with original and unexpected storylines and angles.
In my opinion, The Good Place belongs to the top of the modern comedy series and, in terms of humor and depth, is not inferior to cult classics such as Arrested Development and Community. The Good Place is not afraid to express a clear opinion and is also often critical of today's society. In addition, many references are made to popular culture. For example, it regularly happens that popular book series, films, television series and celebrities are completely ridiculed. That oversimplified edge is also one of the strongest points of the series. People who are less well-versed in pop culture will understand many jokes less well or not at all. But even then, The Good Place is a smart series, with strong humor that can even make you think.
Even though each season has its own separate story, the four seasons together form a clearly rounded and complete story. The characters develop through the seasons in a gradual and believable way and often have recognizable (sometimes somewhat exaggerated) character traits. That is also well portrayed by a strong cast. After finishing the series I had a satisfied feeling, but I also thought it was a pity that the series is now really over, a feeling that I also had with the Community series. Hopefully, there will be another absurdist comedy series soon that can fill the gap of The Good Place.
The Good Place vond ik één van de sterkste komedieseries van de afgelopen jaren. Het heeft een goede cast, sterke humor en vaak bizarre verhaallijnen. Vaak zijn de grappen net op het randje en vrij ongenuanceerd. Met vier seizoenen is er ook een compleet verhaal neergezet en heeft het naar mijn idee een perfect einde. The Good Place zal niet snel verdwijnen uit mijn lijst van favoriete komedieseries!
Op basis van het bovenstaande geef ik The Good Place een welverdiende 9.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
