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Post by Jeremy on Feb 6, 2020 21:43:08 GMT -8
I liked the finale fine. I didn't care for the show's depiction of the true Good Place, and the nihilistic way it dismissed the idea of eternal happiness (the show was never about religious theology, but it feels anticlimactic for it to end on a negative note about the afterlife), but... it did send off the characters in charming fashion, and ended on a great callback joke.
It's a bumpy series, particularly in its second half. But props to NBC for giving it a network timeslot; I'd love to see them do more experimental half-hour shows in the future.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 13, 2020 12:37:04 GMT -8
I didn't care for the show's depiction of the true Good Place, and the nihilistic way it dismissed the idea of eternal happiness See, I really disagree with this - is the show dismissing the idea of eternal happiness, really? Or is it just dismissing the idea of eternity?
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 14, 2020 12:17:07 GMT -8
I think it may be a case of "the latter, therefore the former." The show was initially sold on the concept of eternal bliss ("Welcome! Everything is fine") and though it's taken a lot of turns over the years, the true Good Place has remained the constant end goal. But the last few episodes essentially reduce it to the punchline of a shaggy-dog joke.
I think it's a well-done finale on a character level, but I guess I was hoping for a slightly more upbeat take on the afterlife, especially since that's so rarely a concept that gets explored on TV (and especially on half-hour network sitcoms).
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 14, 2020 12:59:58 GMT -8
I think it may be a case of "the latter, therefore the former." The show was initially sold on the concept of eternal bliss ("Welcome! Everything is fine") and though it's taken a lot of turns over the years, the true Good Place has remained the constant end goal. But the last few episodes essentially reduce it to the punchline of a shaggy-dog joke. I think it's a well-done finale on a character level, but I guess I was hoping for a slightly more upbeat take on the afterlife, especially since that's so rarely a concept that gets explored on TV (and especially on half-hour network sitcoms). The finale, and final season, focused a lot more on the characters than the bigger picture. It seems to always happen with mythology shows--they write themselves into corners, so they just focus on the characters instead. The show didn't really have good answers to the questions it was asking. Which is fine--it's quite a lot to ask a network sitcom to offer deep philosophy or to Solve Ethics or something. The finale was fine. Eleanor and Chidi are....fine. It's just a shame that I'll think of The Good Place as merely 'fine', when I think it could have been so much more than that.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 14, 2020 13:40:41 GMT -8
I think it may be a case of "the latter, therefore the former." The show was initially sold on the concept of eternal bliss ("Welcome! Everything is fine") and though it's taken a lot of turns over the years, the true Good Place has remained the constant end goal. But the last few episodes essentially reduce it to the punchline of a shaggy-dog joke. I think it's a well-done finale on a character level, but I guess I was hoping for a slightly more upbeat take on the afterlife, especially since that's so rarely a concept that gets explored on TV (and especially on half-hour network sitcoms). Let me make two counterarguments. First, rather critically, I think the show argues that eternity is arguably worse than "as much as time as you could possibly want with your loved ones, and free of physical constraint." The afterlife system the Brainy Bunch/Soul Squad/Schur Schmucks set up is... almost literally Buddhism with heaven and hell tacked on, after all, and Buddhism does suggest that the ultimate reward for moral goodness is nonexistence, not "eternal happiness." And from a philosophical perspective, the show had already criticized utilitarianism in two different ways in two different seasons ("The Trolley Problem" and "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By") - why would it not bring up arguably the most famous criticism of utilitarianism? (One that predates utilitarianism: consider the lotus eaters.) (Nota bene: Mike Schur is famously a huge fan of the late David Foster Wallace's 1,100-page novel Infinite Jest, including at one point purchasing the movie rights to it, and Schur includes references to Wallace's work in every show he makes - including "Whenever You're Ready," where Tahani's last goal on her to-do list is "Read Infinite Jest." Infinite Jest is a novel about a movie so entertaining that it effectively liquifies the brain of anyone who watches it - a fairly heavy-handed metaphor for addiction, and a scathing takedown of hedonism. There is no way in hell Mike Schur was going to be presenting eternal bliss as desirable, just based on his oeuvre.) Second, and more interestingly, I don't think the show was ever about the afterlife so much as it was about making a sitcom, and whether the sitcom as a medium can be saved. I think it is not a coincidence, for instance, that Hypatia of Alexandria, the emissary of "heaven," is played by Lisa Kudrow, who famously was the star of a long-lived and wildly successful American situational comedy that by its end had declined into a shallow and mush-minded shadow of its former self. (You know, Web Therapy.) Or that the creator of The Good Place shares a first name with the in-universe creator of the in-universe Good Place (and is played by a sitcom legend to boot). Or that the show's best episode has Chidi opine that if their memories don't keep from episode to episode (ok, iteration of the torture scenario to iteration of the torture scenario), they can't learn or grow or truly become better people - which is of course, the "reset button" problem that we've discussed in the context of many a TV show. Or... well, you get my point. In this context, it's really rather appropriate that the solution to preventing the afterlife equivalent of "seasonal rot" is to... let the show end. Especially given the clear influence on The Good Place of LOST, the first famous example of a network drama operating with a predetermined expiration date.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 15, 2020 18:06:27 GMT -8
I'll buy your first point, especially since I always suspected that (due to its penchant for twists and subversions) the show would pull a fast one in its depiction of the real Good Place. (Also, as someone who wrote a lengthy college thesis on the pros and cons of utilitarianism, how is this the first I'm hearing of the experience machine?)
Not sure I fully buy your second point (stunt casting gonna stunt casting, no matter the show or genre), but it's amusing. I think the sitcom format mostly benefited The Good Place in that it was able to toy with weighty themes and world-building without forcing the audience to take it too seriously. (Many dramas in this vein don't have that benefit - I still remember when Damon Lindelof infamously responded to a fan's questioning about a Lost plot hole with "It's television." You are so lucky that HBO redeemed you, Damon...)
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