The GOOD PLACE

Genre/vibe: Witty comedy/fantasy about the afterlife
Commitment: 4 seasons / 53 episodes (~22 minutes)
Stream it on: Peacock (Originally aired on NBC)

The premise

When you die, there’s a Good Place and a Bad Place. Where you end up is based on a detailed points system of your life, and The Good Place is reserved for only the most elite humans in terms of doing good for the world; everyone else is sent to the Bad Place and tortured for eternity. The show centers around recently dead Eleanor Shellstrop as she meets Michael, enthusiastic architect of her Good Place neighborhood, along with her assigned soulmate Chidi, their neighbors Tahani and Jianyu, a walking not-a-robot encyclopedia named Janet, and a slew of other characters. One problem: there’s been a mixup in names, and this Eleanor is… definitely not supposed to be there. She confides in former ethics professor Chidi, and, as the neighborhood falls into mayhem around them because of her glitch, he tries to teach her how to be a good person.

ELEANOR SHELLSTROP (played by Kristen Bell) — Levelheaded patriarch of the ultra-wealthy Rose family, and former successful video store chain owner. Across the series, he serves as the ‘straight man,’ always doing what he can for the best of his wife and children, though his tech-unsavvyness and peak Eugene Levy cringey parent moments provide plenty of laughs. The way he shows such pure pride at the growth his wife and children experience across the series is incredibly heartwarming, as is the fatherly relationship he develops with the closed-off Stevie.

Memorable moment:
Quintessential Eleanor quote:

MICHAEL (played by Ted Danson) — Levelheaded patriarch of the ultra-wealthy Rose family, and former successful video store chain owner. Across the series, he serves as the ‘straight man,’ always doing what he can for the best of his wife and children, though his tech-unsavvyness and peak Eugene Levy cringey parent moments provide plenty of laughs. The way he shows such pure pride at the growth his wife and children experience across the series is incredibly heartwarming, as is the fatherly relationship he develops with the closed-off Stevie.

Memorable moment:
Quintessential Michael quote:

CHIDI ANAGONYE (played by William Jackson Harper) — Levelheaded patriarch of the ultra-wealthy Rose family, and former successful video store chain owner. Across the series, he serves as the ‘straight man,’ always doing what he can for the best of his wife and children, though his tech-unsavvyness and peak Eugene Levy cringey parent moments provide plenty of laughs. The way he shows such pure pride at the growth his wife and children experience across the series is incredibly heartwarming, as is the fatherly relationship he develops with the closed-off Stevie.

Memorable moment:
Quintessential Chidi quote:

JANET (played by D’Arcy Carden) — Levelheaded patriarch of the ultra-wealthy Rose family, and former successful video store chain owner. Across the series, he serves as the ‘straight man,’ always doing what he can for the best of his wife and children, though his tech-unsavvyness and peak Eugene Levy cringey parent moments provide plenty of laughs. The way he shows such pure pride at the growth his wife and children experience across the series is incredibly heartwarming, as is the fatherly relationship he develops with the closed-off Stevie.

Memorable moment:
Quintessential Janet quote: