Taking A Good Look At The Good Place

So, I watched The Good Place.  All four seasons. Eight years late. 

Eight years? Really? That long? Yes, apparently. That long.

Okay, since I've mentioned it, let's talk time. I mean, I guess I should talk about a lot of other things first, like the cast and the plot and the jokes, since it's a comedy and all, but no, let's talk time.

Here's Michael's explanation of how time works in The Good Place (And the rest of the after-life, probably.) That's The Good Place the actual place (Not an actual place.) not The Good Place the Netflix TV show, which, at least as far as I know, happens in boring old, regular, linear time.

Everyone got that? Good, because it comes up a lot in the extended final episode, about which I guess I can't really say much, just in case there's anyone reading this who's even further behind the zeitgeist than I am, hard though that is to imagine. 

The point is, without spoilers, that a good deal of the impact of that final episode rests on various, quantified numbers of Jeremy Bearimies (Hard word to pluralize since it's more of a picture of a word than an actual word but never mind, go with it.) Except, isn't the whole point of Michael's lecture to explain that time in The Good Place can't be quantified? 

Even if we posit that Jeremy Bearimy is a non-linear, non-quantifiable measurement, using Jeremy Bearimies (Y'know what? I'm going to abbreviate that. Let's call them JBs.) comparatively has to indicate... something, right? 

(This is going to mean nothing to anyone who hasn't watched the show but then I'm probably the last person with a Netflix account to have gotten to it. Oh, no, wait, Mrs Bhagpuss hasn't. She's only just at  Schitts Creek and Superstore so she has a while to go yet before she's on the same page as me, let alone everyone else.)

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, time and the after-life. This is the sort of thing that really shouldn't bother me in a sitcom. I realize that. But it did and it does. Stuff like it bothered me from pretty much the opening scene of S1E1 to the final shot in the series finale. 

Here's the thing that puzzles me most about The Good Place: that it was a hit. Absolutely everything about the show reeks of nerdism and I mean that in the most respectful way possible, which, on reflection, isn't all that. Respectful, I mean. But it does.

Let's leave aside, for the moment, the fact that one of the central characters is a Professor of Moral Philosophy, who not only talks about the subject constantly but gives mini-lectures on it, complete with names, quotes and examples, throughout the entire four seasons, eventually leading to every other character quoting Kant or Hume at the drop of a hat and putting the audience at genuine risk of actually learning something. I have never seen any popular show double down on what ought to have been a minor character quirk so determinedly, not to say dementedly.

No, what I'm talking about is the science-fictional element. When I heard the premise of the show many years ago I didn't think too much about it, other than to decide I didn't want to watch it because speculation about what happens after we die makes me uncomfortable. To the extent I thought about it at all, I imagined it would be some kind of fish-out-of water comedy, set against a backdrop of that delightful quasi-Edwardian vision of Heaven that went out of fashion sometime in the 1950s.

I realize now that impression was based largely on some publicity stills taken in front of Tahani's stately Good Place home-from-home and almost entirely wrong. The Good Place is actually a full-on science-fiction/fantasy-time-travel show, more likely to appeal to fans of Dr Who than Brideshead Revisited.

Science-fiction/fantasy comedies are always problematic. To get the jokes in, the writers often have to pitch the logic out to make room. Unfortunately, I find it very hard to disengage my analytical processes and, like Chidi, I find myself spending more time trying to figure out how things work than just sitting back and enjoying myself.

It's a shame, because there's a lot to enjoy. The ensemble cast is excellent. On the face of it, the show almost looks like a three-hander, with Eleanor, Michael and Chidi in the starring roles, but it quickly becomes clear that there are at least six lead parts with as many more strong, recurring supporting roles. 

It's Friends But They're Dead, basically.

The main, possibly the only, reason I finally buckled down and watched the show, which I'd had in my watchlist pretty much since I got Netflix, was because of Kristen Bell. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say Kristen Bell is now my favorite, working female actor. (Actress? I forget which we're using now.)  Aubrey Plaza might have something to say about it and Jodie Foster isn't out of the reckoning but Kristen Bell is killing it just now.

She's as good here as she always is. Her facial expressions and body language are worth whole paragraphs of script, although she doesn't need to carry anything with her fantastic physical acting because the script is high-quality throughout. All the rest of the cast are on top form, too, although I think it might be fair to say some of the performances take a while to settle. 

When they, do, though, they really settle. By the time the Big Finale arrives at the end of Season Four (And the final episode is a big one - double-length in fact.) it's a good bet most viewers will be feeling very warmly towards every lead and supporting character. Usually, I can call out at least one character in a long(ish) running sitcom that I could have done without but not here. Everyone is just lovely.

And here, once again, we run into the substantive problem of nothing making any fricking sense! I'm not even talking about the plot, which if you followed it you might want to explain it to the rest of the class. I'm talking about emotionality and characterization. Is it feasible that everyone can really be that nice?

Well, yes, it seems so. It's kind of the whole point, too. But to find it, you have get past a whole lot of other stuff, set-ups that are so all-fired nonsensical they're not amenable in any way to analysis or interpretation. 

The conception of eternity and infinity in the show, for a start, even skipping over the way the terms are used as though they were synonymous, which they are not, never remotely threatens to achieve any definition beyond "a really long time that might be a few thousand years of maybe a few hundred but will never end." The Jeremy Bearimy explanation is there to deal with that but there's no follow-through, so it doesn't.

That's the whole time thing again, though, and I covered that already. What about the demons, most of whom express a strong dislike of wearing skin-suits to pose as humans but who nevertheless continue to do it almost all the time, even when there's no objective reason for them to do it? Other than to save on the special effects budget, of course.

Ah, yes, the demons. Note "demons", not "devils". Following in the tradition of Dungeons & Dragons, there's a clear division between classical and Christian iconography that then collapses under an onslaught of generalized pop-culture/middlebrow callbacks to afterlife tropes from the middle-ages to the present.

Then there's the concept of immortality and the immortals themselves. It seems, other than humans, no-one ever dies and everyone has been there since the beginning of time. There are multiple references to that being so but there's no clear explanation of what any of the immortal entities are, although all of them have roles and some of them even have job titles. 

The whole problem of religion gets disposed of right at the start, when Michael tells Eleanor all religions have it a little bit right but mostly wrong and then we never really hear of religion again. The Judge quite specifically mentions having been there from the beginning and has, apparently, all that tim been carrying a device whose specific purpose is to wipe the universe and start over, although only now does she feel the need to use it.

There are a cadre of Janets, whose powers seem easily equal to the task of Creation but there's no Creator. There are Architects, who design eternal neighborhoods for residents of the afterlife and a Council that administers those neighborhoods. And of course, there's The Bad Place which has a more cogent and coherent hierarchy, one which, along with the codes and practices it follows, I couldn't help but notice was more than a little reminiscent of the vision of Hell conjured up by Andy Hamilton in his radio sitcom Old Harry's Game.

Altogether, it's a mish-mash that never at any moment threatens to take a coherent, consistent or conclusive form. It's almost as if some writers sat around in a room somewhere and came up with it all, throwing out everything that got in the way of the jokes.

If you want to know who wrote The Good Place, I can help with that. Also with how and maybe to an extent why. More than a dozen people were involved, most of whom had previously worked together on Parks and Recreation, which I did not know but do not find surprising. 

Parks and Rec is a show I loved the first time I watched it but found a lot less enjoyable on a re-watch, which I wasn't even able to finish. Would I enjoy The Good Place as much, second time around? I don't know but I realize now I haven't even made it clear whether I liked it the once. I should probably clear that up.

I did. I enjoyed it a lot. A lot more than I expected, if I'm honest. I found much of it quite-to-very uncomfortable because, as I said, I really don't like anything that focuses on what happens after we die. (I think nothing, which is terrifying but a lot less terrifying than something, so it's a lose-lose for me.)

The Good Place is consistently funny. There's a slight sag in the first third of Season Three but that's about the only weak point and even then the show's not bad, just a little directionless and self-indulgent. It's also really nice to spend time with a whole load of people who are all basically nice, if annoying at times, and even better are trying and succeeding in becoming nicer still all the time.

That's the throughline, of course. And the takeaway. Literally everyone improves if you give them a chance. Even the demons. All the demons. The fundamental message of the show - and it very definitely has one and means to make sure you get it - is that no-one is so bad they can't be saved. 

I guess that means it is a Christian show, after all. Even if God never shows up, let alone Jesus. It's about redemption, after all. 

But who needs Jesus? Apparently all you really need to save ten billion souls is a bunch of self-centered jerk-offs, a few dissatisfied demons and some immortals who've been there, done that and would rather not do it all again because it'll cut into their box-set bingeing. Who knew?

If this feels somewhat incoherent, then good. So does the show. It might be possible to make sense of it but what would be the point? It's feel-good TV based on feel-bad concepts, which is a trick if you can pull it off. 

And they can. They did. 

Just one more thing. When did Ted Danson learn to act? Or could he always but just never bothered before? Not only is he really, really good in this, he's equally good in his new show, A Man On The Inside, which I started watching immediately I finished The Good Place.

That one's only eight episodes long, the first series at least, so I'll no doubt get to it here soon enough. As for Kristen Bell, she doesn't seem to have anything lined up but then I keep reading how she "came out of retirement" to do Nobody Wants This, so maybe she's back on her verandah by now, sipping mint juleps and watching the sun go down.

Living The Good Life for real. She deserves it.

It's Not Over 'Til It's Over

There was a whole introduction here, where I explained I didn't have enough to say about the shows I've been watching to make a post and how I was going to have to stuff what I did have into a grab-bag alongside a bunch of other odds and ends to pad it out. Then I started writing and the TV part alone came to almost two thousand words, which seemed like it might be enough after all. So that's what this post is now.

And even then it's only two shows. I was going to cover three because I thought that's what I'd watched all the way through to the end but it turns out I hadn't after all because one of them hasn't actually finished yet. It still has three episodes to go. That's what happens when Prime decides to switch things up and drop three episodes at a time. I'm not used to the cadence. It throws me off.

Nine did seem like a curious number of episodes for a full season but the last one, which obviously I know now wasn't the last at all, really did feel like a season-ending cliffhanger to me. I took it that way quite happily. I was only mildly disturbed it seemed to end on such a downbeat note. I thought it was quite brave, if anything.

I'd still be thinking of it like that if I hadn't just now decided to fact-check, ahead of writing this post, just to make absolutely sure there weren't any more coming. Only to find out that, yes, there were. Three more as of last night, in fact.

I'll hold off on that one, then, until I've watched those. Looks like the story might end differently to how I'd imagined. Now there's time for a happy ending, although I kind of hope that's not where it's heading, which sounds a bit mean but art can be unkind. 

I suppose I also ought to say what show it is. It's Vox Machina.

Another show I definitely have finished and will not be watching any more of is Kaos. Not because I didn't enjoy it. I liked it quite a lot. Because it's already been dropped by Netflix, who seem to have the attention span of a six week old kitten these days. 

Kaos is a mildly surreal, slightly disconcerting take on Greek myth starring Jeff Goldblum and an excellent supporting cast, including David Thewlis, who I have to admit I thought had died years ago. Must be confusing him with someone else. 

The eight episode first season very clearly sets up a second that's never going to happen unless someone else picks it up, which seems unlikely. There seems to be no obvious explanation for the decision, either, except that it didn't meet whatever criteria for success Netflix set. 

It was fairly successful in terms of viewer numbers and critical reception was fairly good but middling success doesn't seem to cut it with the streaming services any more. They do all need plenty of filler but they can buy those shows in from around the world much more cheaply than it costs to make their own. Kaos looks like it would have been expensive and expensive needs to be a big hit, not just to chart.

It ws also a hardish show to place, which probably didn't help. It was funny and scary and supernatural and romantic. More like a very long movie than a TV show. It's main strength was the acting, which was top-notch throughout. Jeff Goldblum was predictably mesmerising, shifting from affable bonhomie to chilling anomie with a deeply disturbing facility. He wasn't particularly likeable, though, and neither were several others in the main cast. That can't have helped, either. 

I liked just about everyone in it, as characters, but I found several of them uncomfortable to spend time with. It was never a comfortable watch. Unsettling, I think, is the word for it.

As well as a fairly large central cast, there were a lot of minor but significant characters too, all of them well-played. I could have used a little more of some, not least Suzy Eddie Izzard as the Fate Lachesis (Lachy if you prefer.) If I had to pick a favorite, though, it would be Thewlis's Hades, so underplayed he was barely there. A masterclass in subtlety.

The writing was mostly good, particularly the dialog, much of which sparkled. The plot seemed a little wayward at times. I'm not sure how much sense it would make if I watched it again, paying more attention. It seemed to be caroming along on impetus some of the time. Nothing wrong with that, though.

Visually, Kaos was sumptuous but also very distracting, for me anyway. I spent a considerable amount of time in the early epiodes not paying full attention to the story (Which might explain some of my issues with the plotting.) because I was trying to figure out if the Theban palace scenes had actually been filmed at Plaza de Espana in the Parque de Maria Luisa in Sevilla, a location I know very well.

It was indeed shot there. It could hardly be anywhere else. The place is nothing if not distinctive. In fact, pretty much the entire series was shot in Spain, much of it in other places I've spent time, although I can't pretend I spotted any other specific locations.

It's always distracting to see places you know turn up in fictional shows, especially when they're being used as stand-ins for somewhere else. I ought to be used to it, living as I do in a city where film crews closing off the streets for something or other is a near-constant disruption to daily life but I tend not to watch the kinds of costume dramas they're working on. 

In this case, though, the main effect the familiar setting had on me was to make me want to go back to Sevilla. It's been a while. It was good to visit again, even vicariously. Another reason to regret the untimely curtailment of what was a very enjoyable show.

In absolutely no danger of being canned after one season is another new Netflix show I've just finished: Nobody Wants This. If ever a show was named with unintentional irony, this has to be it.

Everybody Wants This would be a more appropriate title. As I write, it's sitting at 95% critical, 85% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, five stars on IMDB and #3 on the Netflix global chart after more than a month. Season 2 has already been commissioned.

It absolutely deserves all that praise and success. It's as close to flawless as anyone could possibly expect a sitcom about an agnostic podcaster who falls in love with a rabbi ever to be. 

I mean, come on! Look at that set-up. It stinks, doesn't it? Would you watch it? I wouldn't and I'm a huge sitcom fan.

So why did I watch it? Same reason everyone else did, I imagine. Kristen Bell.

Kristen Bell is a name I trust. I've yet to see her in anything that wasn't good or where she wasn't the best thing in it. She's a superb comic actor with a great deal more range than just that, as if just that wouldn't be enough. 

I'm currently watching another of her successes, The Good Place, several years after everyone else. I would have watched it sooner but for two reasons: the premise creeps me out and I had somehow managed to remain oblivious to her presence in the show, which must have taken some doing seeing she's the lead. It was only when Netflix helpfully recommended it to me as the next show I might want to watch after Nobody Wants This finished that I realised Kristen Bell was in it at all.

NWT Season 1 is ten episodes long and every one is a gem. Many of them would almost work as short stand-alone playlets, which is how sitcoms used to be before they turned into soap operas with gags. One of these days I might write something on situation comedy as a genre, in which case this show is going to be a case study. Is it a sitcom? Is there actually a definable situation here?

I asked myself that question a few times as I watched the series. It seemed much more like that misbegotten, bastard genre we blushingly call dramedy at times, especially when the seasonal arc seemed to be heading straight to the altar (Or wherever it is Jewish wedding ceremonies take place.) I was stumped, trying to figure out how a show based on the opposites attract trope could be expected to run for the six-to-eight seasons a hit sitcom requires, if the opposites turned out to be so very congruent by the middle of Season 1.

Turns out the writers had an answer for that, one which I won't reveal for reasons of spoilage. It's hard to imagine anyone hasn't already watched the show because why the hell wouldn't you but then I just admitted I'm five years late on The Good Place so go figure. It's always too soon for spoilers.

NWT is yet another show where the sheer quality of the acting is overwhelming. I swear, the older I get, the better actors become, most especially on TV. It's across the board, pretty much, too, domestic and international, broadcast and streaming. 

If I look back at shows I loved in the sixties, seventies, eighties and even the nineties I feel I have to make allowances for the time they were made. Individual performances match current quality standards and so do certain shows but the mean average bears no comparison. Actors are just better now. A lot better, many of them.

Or maybe directors are or writers or showrunners, a job that didn't even exist back then... Who knows? Maybe don't look for explanations. Just take the win.

The entire cast of Nobody Wants This shines throughout. Kristen Bell is exemplary as ever but so is everyone else. Structurally, the show manages somehow to be a star vehicle, a two-hander and an ensemble piece all at the same time. Adam Brody, who gets almost as much screen time as Bell, is consistently funny as rabbi Noah Roklov but his brother, Sasha, played by Timothy Simons, is funnier still.

But they're all funny. It's one of those shows where no-one is ever the straight guy and yet it very much isn't one of those shows where every other line is a zinger and it feels like the writers' room is right there on screen. I mean, I love those shows but they're one step away from stand-up. This is one step away from straight drama. And it's a small step.

It would be pointless to call out all of the cast members I particularly enjoyed because I particularly enjoyed just about all of them. I will say, though, that I hope the sisters' agent, Ashley, played with deliciously irritable elan by the surely-not-her-real-name Sherry Cola, gets more to do in the second season.

Other than to go on and on about how great it is, I don't have much more to say about this one so I'll leave it there. If you haven't seen it, rectify that immediately.

So that's television done. It turns out three shows, one of which I didn't even write about, was enough for a post after all. Who'd have guessed? Anyone who's been here before, I imagine.

It feels like the post is still missing a big finish, though. We need a tune and what could be better or more apt than Blondshell doing Veronica Mars? 

Yes, it may well be the third or fourth time the same song has appeared here. What of it? It won't be the last, either, I'll promise you that.

There are plenty of live versions on YouTube, not all of them with the greatest sound and few that can  replicate the emotionally evocative guitar squall of the studio ending. This one, from an Icelandic radio broadcast, comes as close as any and Sabrina just kills it. Best enjoyed very loud.