The Good Place has the potential in it to be a really amazing, fun show. It completely ignores that potential, though, in favour of playing things as safe as possible. It's frustrating, because the show has a fantastic central concept and both Kristen Bell and Ted Danson have the ability to make anything they are involved in better.
It turns out that they are not quite enough, and Danson especially gives a distractingly odd performance throughout (reasons for this can be explained away, but it's so off putting). The humour is extremely hit and miss, although most episodes did manage to get one genuine laugh out of me. It's a show that desperately needs to be more risqué and have more adventurous storytelling. Every character beside the two leads are bland, poorly written and certainly poorly acted (Chidi and Tahani being the biggest culprits).
BUT. The show does something unexpected. It actually pushes the narrative forward instead of sticking to the same conceit every episode, giving us new storytelling avenues. By the end we get that genuinely unexpected twist that re-frames EVERYTHING we've seen so far, and actually makes the show's annoyances suddenly make sense in retrospect.
Even if that hadn't happened, there's something about The Good Place that made me want to keep watching. It's completely mediocre but has enough of a spark that it succeeds in standing out, and given how the first season ended it could go somewhere good.
The Good Place - Season One
A slow burn with an uninspired premise at face value. But ramps up tension and flips expectations.
Great Cast and solid acting.
Kristen Bell plays a fantastic scum bag, and I always like Ted Danson.
8/10
#NicksMiniReview
I've already made a comment here, but it didn't represent what I wanted it to represent, and it sounded more arrogant than I wanted it to be, so I'm just doing it again, more simply and calmly.
The Good Place is a good show because it doesn't try to explain all of itself to you at once. You need to take your time to appreciate the narrative and see it unveils as a whole, and then most of the "plot holes" it apparently has will be explained. I indeed liked the humor and most of the jokes throughout the journey, but I see why some people don't really lie them. But far from the narrative, or at least the Line A narrative, The Good Place goodness lies below its surfaces. Telling a story does not require just the script. The cameras, the actors, the art department, editing, everything is necessary to give a project a unique look, and this shows excels here. The idea of not showing Michael's character alone is on point, so we cannot find out who he really is, and the fact that our world looks artificial and bad shaped is also a good indicative that maybe something is not right. Also, each event that happens in the neighborhood is a chance to publicly humiliate the tortured souls, and yes, some of the editing techniques seem cheesy, but they are necessary to convey the cheesiness of this show.
Anyway, just wanted to vent it out and be cool with myself.
A woman meant to be sent to hell finds herself in paradise due to a mistake, and tries the impossible to become a better person and remain undercover. The dynamics and world-building at the core are delightful, an although the humor felt a little repetitive with some of the characters (Jianyu in particular), the jokes are usually good. While the ethical questions presented are often oversimplified, they still offer enough to chew for a light comedy show. The first season exposes some weaknesses that are ultimately addressed in the finale, coupled with a smart trick to sets the stage for multiple seasons of (hopefully) engaging storytelling.
The flashbacks are so annoying. They are generally stupid, not funny, and completely disrupt the flow of the scene they hijack. They add absolutely nothing to the show.
After binge watching Upload... I wanted another show slightly along those lines... this wasn’t it! After two episodes of the first season I’m done.
Kristen Bell and Ted Danson star in the heavenly comedy The Good Place. In Season 1 Eleanor Shellstrop dies and goes to the afterlife where she’s welcomed to The Good Place, a planned community made up of people who led extraordinarily good lives; but little do they know she’s not the “Eleanor” that they think she is, leading her to seek help from her assigned soulmate Chidi, an ethics professor, to help her learn to be good so that she won’t be found out. The show does a pretty good job at establishing that it’s its own thing; staying fairly secular so as not to offend any religious beliefs. And the comedy is rather broad, with a little bit of satire here and there. Kristen Bell is brilliantly cast as Eleanor and gives an excellent performance, and Ted Danson is especially good as the “architect” overseeing the Good Place. Plus, Adam Scott guest stars as a recurring character, and is hilarious. Incredibly funny, The Good Place is a fresh and exciting series that delivers a promising first season.
I wasn't expecting this to be so fun. The premise is somewhat interesting, but I had no idea how they could develop it in a thrilling way. I'm glad I decided to watch this.
Still, I'm kind of worried about what they will do with the next seasons. Not sure how it could go from where it ended.
Like a lot of comedy shows, it takes a bunch of episodes to find its groove but when it clicks, it really does, despite having a very very very bad actress as the main character. The rest of the cast is amazing, though, and the way the season evolves, by destroying network comedy shows clichés and reinventing itself instead of sitting on a bland repetition of it's basic plot is amazing. It's really smart, funny, great TV.
Average episode rating for this season: 6.23076923
I'm just going to hope that season two catches the pass (the cliffhanger at the end of episode 13) and runs it to the endzone. This show could be converted into something better if it does.
Holy shirt, did I just make a football pun? Fork me!
Shout by YavothBlockedParent2023-10-17T22:18:04Z
This is probably the weakest season of the show – the whole thing really takes off after the wonderful twist in this season's finale. It's still great fun to watch, though, perhaps especially on a rewatch.