I recently finished bingeing the second season of The Good Place on Netflix (created by the brilliant and prolific Michael Schur). Happily, a forthcoming third season has been announced.
Usually I can give a simple reason why I like a TV series. Shows can be clever, or absurd, or laugh-out-loud funny, or emotionally engaging, or dark and disturbing, or daringly innovative and rule breaking, or philosophically challenging, or are able to teach you things you didn’t know.
The Good Place is all that and more. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a TV series hit so many bases at once.
The premise is simple. Essentially, it takes a certain well known existentialist play and refashions it as an absurdist comedy for the Millennial age.
But where it goes from there is wondrous. After having seen the first two seasons, I now find myself regarding the people around with greater appreciation, and with gratitude for our shared humanity. How many side-splittingly funny comedies can claim to have that effect?
While I wait for the third season, I may just go back and watch the first two again. 🙂