The Good Place Anticipation: The Show, Not The Afterlife

[Meredith Quill]

Anticipate Here!

[Just Here]

Trailer looks good. Solid leads in Kristen Bell and Ted Danson. Amused by the bad words filter.

Though, at first blush, the premise seems better suited for a one-off comedy film, not a multi-season TV series. I guess I'll have to wait until I see the full pilot and a few episodes to get a better idea of the over-arching plot and to see whether the series has legs.

Also, wondering if Bell's character was suppose to die when she did, or if the screw-up happened earlier in the afterlife bureaucracy (such as a Here Comes Mr. Jordan / Heaven Can Wait scenario) and there's a possibility that Bell's character can return to the mortal realm in some fashion. And, if so, that would be a definite plot game-changer that could be used after two seasons or so.

[Kromm]

I already saw someone else compare it to Dead Like Me and was puzzled by that comparison (the only thing I got is "someone's dead"), so I hope that person shows up and explains that notion a bit more. For me the natural comparison is Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life.  The problem is that Defending Your Life covered this ground really well, and so do we need more in the same mode?

And yeah. the "it seems ideal for a movie" was my thought too in the brief off-hand comment I tossed down in the forum request thread. At least from the preview, there's no sense this goes anywhere outside their version of Heaven, and I can really see antics where she tries to thwart the rules there getting pretty old pretty quickly. There needs to be some big twist within three or four episodes for this concept to not totally put us to sleep. Season 2 would be too late IMO.

I do like the indications that it seems a bit slapsticky. That's a good use of Bell's talent.

Edited May 17, 2016 by Kromm

[topanga]

On 5/17/2016 at 10:52 AM, Just Here said:

Trailer looks good. Solid leads in Kristen Bell and Ted Danson. Amused by the bad words filter.

Though, at first blush, the premise seems better suited for a one-off comedy film, not a multi-season TV series. I guess I'll have to wait until I see the full pilot and a few episodes to get a better idea of the over-arching plot and to see whether the series has legs.

Also, wondering if Bell's character was suppose to die when she did, or if the screw-up happened earlier in the afterlife bureaucracy (such as a Here Comes Mr. Jordan / Heaven Can Wait scenario) and there's a possibility that Bell's character can return to the mortal realm in some fashion. And, if so, that would be a definite plot game-changer that could be used after two seasons or so.

I think you'd be a good staff writer. I had the same thought about how they'd use that premise to sustain a season-long (or multi-season) show.

But I like Kristen Bell, so I'll give it a shot. I'm curious to see how she'll pull off playing a "bad girl" without using profanity. On "House of Lies," she was great at telling characters to STFU (or worse). 

[millennium]

It looks like a steaming piece of shirt.  And I predict it will bomb.

Ted Danson should be embarrassed, having starred in one of the best sitcoms of all time, only to end up whoring himself like this.

Sorry to be negative but the promos for this show -- which milk third-grade humor by finding not-so-clever ways to use foul language -- make me really depressed for how low the standards of creativity and propriety have plummeted in modern life.   But I guess this is where we're headed in a society where a Presidential candidate alludes to his penis size on national television.

God help us.

[Kromm]

I agree. I think Schur plays to silly but doesn't rest on it. Parks and Rec could have simply been silly (virtually everything Tom Haverford and Ron Swanson did), but it was just used as a base to lay other things on top of. 

And yes, the Matt Le Blanc and Kevin James stuff looks infinitely worse. 

[millennium]

I don't know from Mike Schur, never heard of him.    All I see is a lame comedy apparently proud of itself for finding ways to say asshole and motherfucker on network TV.   How forking far we've come.   The Beavis and Butthead generation grows up.

Edited September 13, 2016 by millennium

[Minneapple]

I'm looking forward to this. I love Kristen Bell and the reviews are very positive. I'm also encouraged by the fact that it's only 13 episodes, which eases some of the worries about having enough material for a long-term project. 

[cpcathy]

I think it's smart, having fewer episodes. As in the case of my beloved Fargo, you get fewer episodes, better quality.

[Kromm]

On 9/13/2016 at 7:51 PM, millennium said:

I don't know from Mike Schur, never heard of him.    All I see is a lame comedy apparently proud of itself for finding ways to say asshole and motherfucker on network TV.   How forking far we've come.   The Beavis and Butthead generation grows up.

The io9 review seems to address this specifically. It claims the show actually has a lot of subtext on weightier stuff, for example, the idea that BEING good and DOING good aren't necessarily the same thing.

[Big Mother]

I'm putting this into spoiler tags even though theyre not spoilers, just pure speculation/guesswork, but click at your own risk.

Spoiler

I have a funny feeling that this is a time warp situation; i.o.w. the Eleanor depicted on the walls is the future Eleanor that she turned into *after* her "near-death" experience, which was this first foray into heaven. This is the person she "could have been" / "will be", after a year of spending time in Heaven, turning into a good person under Chidi's tutelage. and maybe that's the whole point of this neighborhood, for people who deserve a second chance on life but need some training? Something similar to Drop Dead Diva? I'm talking myself in circles here, but you might get what I mean.