By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
After the general debauchery of New Year’s Eve wears off, everyone has to face the morning with the same challenge: living up to those ambitious resolutions we made the night before. “New year, new me” is easy enough to say out loud, but even those who love to keep their resolutions are stuck with a difficult question: where the heck can you learn enough to actually become a better person this year? Fortunately, the answer is easier than you might think. All you have to do is stream The Good Place on Netflix for one hilarious lesson after another about becoming a better person.
The Plot Of The Good Place
Long before The Good Place landed on Netflix, it impressed NBC audiences with its very unique premise. We follow one character who is sent to “The Good Place” after she dies despite knowing fully well that she doesn’t deserve an eternity in sitcom heaven. Deciding to fake it until she makes it, she decides to learn more about being a good person, but all of the philosophical and ethical knowledge in the world can’t prepare her for the twists and turns her afterlife is about to take.
The Good Place has been tearing up the charts on Netflix thanks to its great cast, including Kristen Bell (best known for Veronica Mars) as the woman seemingly sent to Heaven by mistake. William Jackson Harper (who has been in everything from Midsommar to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) plays her ethics teacher, and their quartet is rounded out by She-Hulk veteran Jameela Jamil (who plays a ditzy party girl) and Acolyte veteran Manny Jacinto. Meanwhile, they meet two new allies in The Good Place: a charismatic architect played by Ted Dansen and a kind of walking, talking (not to mention all-knowing) Wikipedia played by D’Arcy Carden.
One Of The Best Comedy Shows
Once you watch The Good Place on Netflix, you’ll better understand why many (including us!) consider it one of the best-written shows in the entire Golden Age of Television. Short seasons planned well in advance mean that the show has great arcs for each character and far more twists and turns than you might guess from its premise. Plus, while it didn’t win nearly enough for our liking, The Good Place was a real awards darling, racking up 14 Primetime Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations while taking home a Peabody as well as four Hugo Awards.
And now that a new crop of fans are checking out The Good Place on Netflix, they are learning that it lives up to its critical reputation. On Rotten Tomatoes, the show has an impressive critical rating of 97 percent and an audience rating (via Popcornmeter) of 89 percent. It’s an amazing show to watch for the first time and even more rewarding to revisit, and the show’s amazing and ambitious storytelling stands out all the more in an age where most shows (especially those exclusive to streaming) are canceled before they can complete their run.
Will you find The Good Place as heavenly as we did after you stream it on Netflix, or will you decide this is the kind of show that only a Bad Janet can appreciate? You won’t know until you stream it yourself, effectively starting the new year with a bang. Be warned, though: after a few episodes of this spirited sitcom, other TV comedies will seem like they came straight from The Bad Place.
