The Big Bang Theory (Season 11)

I'm more or less putting this up not because I really have strong thoughts on The Big Bang Theory, but because I'm trying to make an effort to at least have a log of the seasons of shows I finish this year. For awhile now, this show hasn't shown much special; it's mostly empty calories that we'll put on during dinner when we don't need to worry about having a full attention span. The show takes a lot of crap because it's far more popular than its quality, but if it weren't for its Nielsen rating, it'd be just another big-network sitcom you don't know anything about and there'd be no reason for you to throw rocks at it. Also, it would have been cancelled a long time ago.

This deep into its run, the story for all of these people is largely played out and they're more or less pushing these characters' lives forward because CBS is paying top dollar for it. 11 years in, four of the five original main characters are married (two of them to each other), and the remaining one, Raj, has been a relatively consistent weak spot throughout the show's run. The humanizing of Sheldon and Howard has given the show good material in the past, but by this point, they've become self-aware enough that it doesn't register as a "big" moment when they do something selfless. Leonard is a nothingburger who's basically been unchanged over the course of the show, is often annoying, and these days takes a back seat to the stronger characters.

Penny, who has somehow gone 11 seasons without being assigned a last name, has become a bright spot for the series, particularly because she's come so far from being treated as the naive "dumb one" by the show. Amy has also changed quite a bit between the robotesque character that met Sheldon in the coffee shop at the end of Season Three, so much so that it's hard to believe the current iteration is even the same person, but Mayim Bialik has been a consistently great presence on the show. Bernadette has been thoroughly unlikable for a long time.

While the show usually gets in some good jokes in an episode, the real reason this show became interesting in the first place was because it had strong characters like Sheldon (most obviously), Howard, Penny, and Amy. By now, everyone's become pretty stagnant and the show spent Season 11 churning out mostly forgettable plot lines. The exception was Sheldon and Amy's wedding, but they goofed that up by turning it onto an excuse to have Mark Hamill on the show for some reason, which distracted from what could have been a good tribute to the former pair's lengthy relationship.

We'll probably keep watching this show until the end, if for no other reason that it's light, digestible, and somehow has avoided completely jumping the shark (if the history of sitcoms has taught us anything, it's that shows containing uber-brilliant scientists have a tough time keeping things grounded in reality). There's just no reason to expect much from it.

Season Grade: C+

The Bridge on the River Kwai

I have an irrational and unfortunate prejudice against old movies. I don't know why, but if you hand me any element of pop culture, be it movies, TV, or music, that was created before 1980, my knee jerk reaction is, "No thanks." Athletes have become progressively better at sports over time, and my theory is that the same goes for the ceiling of other aspects of pop culture. Modern actors are better, modern cinematics are better, modern writers are better, modern instrumentals and sound systems are better, and today's creators are able to build on a rich history of what works and what doesn't. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people butchering all three of those forms of entertainment today (particularly music....damn kids), but I think that at their peak, all three are superior to anything that existed forty years ago.

That's why I'm damn surprised that I actually decided to sit down and watch a consensus all-time classic in Bridge on the River Kwai. It's further surprising because I am not big into war films, and it I think it's honestly because I tried to memorize the AFI Top 100 a long time ago and it had a cool title that was always easy to remember. I looked up a plot summary years ago and it seemed interesting enough. It happened to be airing early on Father's Day, so I recorded it and watched it over the course of the following five days (this is how watching a movie operates when you have two children and a spouse who is not directly invested in the film).

Bridge on the River Kwai is the story of British prisoners in a World War II era Japanese prison camp. The Japanese commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), is under great pressure to construct the titular bridge over the titular river to connect Bangkok and Rangoon, as this is will be of great military benefit to Japan. The British prisoners are under the command of the respected Lt. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness). Nicholson is principled to a fault (key word) and bravely insists that high-ranking officers will not perform manual labor on the bridge. At first, Saito reprimands him for this refusal, but his desperation to complete the project on time eventually leads him to concede this demand, as there are skilled engineers among the British officers.

Nicholson is appalled to see the British soldiers are intentionally doing poor work to sabotage the bridge (and thus abet the Allies' war effort). He takes command of the operation and insists that the British army should take pride in their work, both for morale reasons and to maintain their identity as soldiers. Meanwhile, an American in the prison camp, Commander Shears (William Holden), escapes from captivity. He eventually winds up as part of a four-man expedition under the command of the British army to plant explosives on the bridge and destroy it when a train carrying soldiers attempts to cross it.

The most important relationship in the film is between Saito and Nicholson. Nicholson's a prisoner, but Saito will be forced to commit ritual suicide if he can't complete the bridge on time, and he can't do it without Nicholson's help. The fact that Nicholson has superior leadership skills gives Saito great grief, but there's a palpable deepening respect that the two have for one another over the course of the movie. In the events leading up to the film's climax, they're practically one another's closest allies. That begs the question of whether Nicholson's attempts to maintain a sense of pride in the British soldiers actually bleeds into treasonous activity, as a proper bridge is of critical importance to their Japanese enemies. There's rich irony built into this story every step of the way.

The Saito/Nicholson plot is very strong, and Guinness wound up taking home Best Actor hardware for his efforts, which kind of surprises me after seeing the film. He was decent in the role, but I wasn't blown away. I thought Holden gave a better performance, even though Shears' arc was probably the most problematic thing about the film from a plot perspective. His team's journey to blow up the bridge was unnecessarily drawn-out and rather boring, despite Holden's charisma. Bridge on the River Kwai is a very long film, at 2 hours and 41 minutes, but there is certainly not 2 hours and 41 minutes worth of story here. They could have cut a good amount of Shears' scenes and been no worse for the wear.

I'm glad I watched this movie, but I don't think it did much to dispel my stubborn beliefs about things made more than a half-century ago. Bridge on the River Kwai is regarded as an all-time classic and a culturally relevant film. I can certainly understand that, as I could believe it was much better than anything that came out at the time. However, I just don't think it holds up against modern filmmaking, and the excessively long Shears storyline dings it, because it got just as much screen time as the good stuff. Rake me over the coals for this if you must.

Grade: B-

The Americans (Season One)

Modern TV is replete with antihero sagas and The Americans is yet another show to contribute to that ever-growing pool. Season One aired back in 2013 and the show has just completed its run. Naturally, given my proclivity to pick up things 5-10 years after they gain a foothold in the culture, 2018 was the perfect time for me to check out this show.

The Americans is a period drama set in the early 1980s during the Cold War. Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) Jennings are the mother and father of two kids and own a cozy house in the suburbs. The catch? They're both KGB spies that have managed to hide this fact from their teenage daughter Paige and younger son Henry. The series juxtaposes their KGB activity (which involves murder, intimidation, deceit, extreme violence, sex, torture, and a whole lot of hand-to-hand combat) and mundane activities around their house and hanging out with their neighbors, who are none the wiser.

That last bit is particularly important, because their new next-door neighbors, the Beemans, include an FBI agent. Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) reveals his occupation when the families first meet, and the look on Philip's face is absolutely priceless. Despite Stan's initial suspicions, he and Philip become good friends, as do Elizabeth and Sandra later on in the season. Stan's a key man at the Bureau in charge of trying to track down Directorate 'S' KGB spies, and little does he know that the Jennings next door are exactly the man and woman that he's trying to catch.

Over the course of the season, Philip and Elizabeth meet their new handler, Claudia (a.k.a. "Grannie"), played by Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale. Their relationship with her is very complex, as she's extremely mysterious and they're never sure whether she gives a damn about either of them, whether she's just following orders, or whether she's got an agenda of her own independent of what's coming from Moscow. For Philip, Claudia may as well be a proxy for Moscow itself, as it's revealed as early as the first episode that he's not as beholden to the motherland as Elizabeth and he questions much of what they're doing over the course of Season One.

At it's core, The Americans is a show about relationships and how our lives -- whether we're spies in a foreign land or not -- relentlessly test how we feel about one another. As one might expect from an espionage show, the theme of trust is examined constantly, and it's not tied to the highs and lows of typical human relationships. Elizabeth and Philip were an arranged couple, so part of that relationship is going to be fake to some degree, but at the same time, their love for their children is completely real and everything they've been through on their mission forges a strong bond between them. Their marriage is a facade, but it has plenty in common with a real one.

There's a ton of action in Season One of The Americans and the compelling plot moves at a very brisk pace. There's some nits to pick in there (in particular, the murder of a minor character motivates another to reconsider their loyalties, but the relationship between the two was woefully underdeveloped, so much so that the change-of-heart barely makes sense), but it's certainly a very good show, and everything I have heard makes me pretty stoked to plow ahead with the rest of the series. At six seasons, it's going to be a bit of a marathon, but most likely a fun one.

Season One Grade: A-*

*if you're curious as to why nearly every show I've reviewed this year has a very high grade, I've made very little progress on lesser ones, and those I've finished (e.g. Top Chef) often don't merit a writeup. I promise that reviews of worse shows are coming, so get excited!

Ozark (Season One)

Disastrous season finale undoes some built-up goodwill, bringing the show's flaws into focus

*******************************************************

I mentioned in my year-end TV review that we dropped Ozark after the first couple episodes, not necessarily because it was bad, but because we sort of ran out of TV time and the early installments of the show didn't build up enough momentum to get us racing to the remote during a busy period of our lives. Eventually, months later, I picked it back up again and finished off the season, leaving me with some mixed feelings on the show.

Ozark is the story of Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a financial planner in Chicago (living in Naperville!) whose primary job is to launder money for a Mexican drug cartel. His primary contact with the cartel, Camino Del Rio ("Del", portrayed by Esai Morales) is a frightening man who seems to be highly intelligent, great at reading people, and also ruthlessly violent. In the first episode, a scheme goes wrong thanks to Marty's partner and Marty is forced to repay a debt to Del. He tries to do so by relocating his family to a small town in the Missouri Ozarks, where he must find a means within local businesses to clean a large sum of money for Del. Unfortunately, the locals don't prove to be quite as unassuming and manipulable as he expected, and the town has a dark underbelly of its own that becomes just as much of a threat to Marty and his family as the Mexican cartel.

Shortly after their arrival in town, the Byrdes become entangled with the Langmore family, trailer residents with varying degrees of greed and violent tendencies. Young adult Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) is probably the show's strongest character in performance and writing (though I could have done without her wearing out the impact of the word "fuck" and its variants by the third episode). She originally steals some of Marty's money, but eventually becomes an ally of Marty's in his laundering scheme, despite continuing to plan to murder him and take all of Del's unwashed cash.

Marty's relationship to his family is tenuous at best, as in the first episode it's revealed that his wife Wendy (Laura Linney) is anything but loyal. Both are somewhat distant from their children due to a lack of being forthright about their business and their reasons for uprooting their lives. A particularly good (and necessary) flashback episode shows how Marty wound up in illegal dealings in the first place, and it's both an argument for and against whether the pair truly deserve the scorn that they get from their children.

The tone of the show is constantly dark with almost no room for humor, and as the latest in the long line of anti-hero dramas that have sprung up since Tony Soprano graced the small screen, that would basically require Ozark to boast a combination of strong characters, great acting, and heart-pounding drama for it to stand out. It doesn't quite complete that trifecta. Generally, both Bateman and Linney leave a lot to be desired from an acting perspective, but fortunately Garner, Morales, and several others in minor roles effectively bring their characters to life. The show does a good job of world-building once you get beyond the first couple introductory episodes and largely keeps the plot riveting throughout (Marty almost constantly has three different entities out to get him, which makes breathing room hard to come by).

Unfortunately, the season finale undermines much of what comes before it, as the show makes three major mistakes in going for misery-porn shock value and having someone make a blunder that's so out-of-character that it not only destroys a season's worth of development, but calls into question whether the show is interested in any of these people beyond their ability to advance the plot. The horrid finale shone a greater light on some of the show's season-long issues, which were forgivable until it lost sight of the things that were working. Suddenly, the relentlessly gloomy mood, the predictability of most plot twists (nearly every ostensibly low-key scene in the show either leads into or blatantly foreshadows something significant that will happen next; Ozark isn't interested in just slowing down and casually hanging out with its characters), and the weakness of the performance from the two leads weren't things that the fast-paced action could allow me to forgive.

The remainder of this post will contain specific spoilers regarding my problems with the finale and is only for people who have seen the show. If you'd like to read it, highlight the text below.

In the sixth episode, Jacob Snell threatens to cut Pastor Young's baby out of his wife's womb if Marty doesn't halt construction of the church. That's a horrific threat, but with a target that doesn't make a great deal of sense when directed at Marty. It's easy to shrug off as something that will never actually come to pass. When Pastor Young falters in keeping up his sermons on the water, preventing Snell's drug distribution operation from continuing, Snell actually follows through on that, and we cut to Pastor Young finding his new baby, which one of Snell's underlings must have actually cut out of his wife's body during or after murdering her. Moving past the fact that Pastor Young's wife didn't actually wrong anyone good or evil during the plot, it's just a universally disgusting thing to do. We didn't need any further evidence that the Snells were dangerous people; we got that from the very first scene they were in and got more of it later in this very episode. Even though nothing graphic was shown, there was absolutely no upside to putting that image in peoples' heads.

That was the least of the episode's three grave sins. The second involved the conclusion of the huge business deal between Del and the Snells. The whole season, Del is portrayed as a careful, calculating man who has a sixth sense for judging character. He's ruthless, but also very smart and generally speaks respectfully to those with whom he is dealing, even if he's about to have them killed. That makes what he does next so infuriating from the perspective of anyone who had already spent almost ten hours watching the show to this point. He turns away with Marty and says -- within clear earshot of the Snells --

"Only Marty Byrde can move to Missouri and somehow convince me to partner with a bunch of rednecks."

Darlene Snell asks him to repeat himself, and he's actually stupid enough to say it again! Only this time, Darlene shoots him dead before he finishes the sentence. The one nice touch is that it ties back to the Snells' earlier strong insistence that they are "hillbillies", not "rednecks", but that doesn't redeem it. To take a character like Del who has been portrayed as cunning and intelligent for the whole season and have him die because of such a foolhardy and unnecessary comment (which contained a slur uncharacteristic of the way he spoke all season long) is simply ridiculous. It seems like they were set on having Del killed off in the finale, but couldn't think of a natural way to do it and landed on this.

Finally, Pastor Young is unhinged after discovering his wife has been murdered. When Marty comes to visit him, he makes the comment,

"Why would I want to keep a baby alive in this world?"

Marty tries to talk him down, but then later in the episode, we see the pastor driving to a lake with the baby that was very recently cut out of his mother's womb. He stands in the lake and sort of violently pushes his infant son under the water and holds him there while the camera focuses on his determined face. The baby is fully submerged in the water for THIRTY SECONDS (I timed it) while the audience is mostly convinced that the pastor is drowning his son. The only possible alternative, of course, is that it's a baptism, and sure enough, the pastor eventually pulls his air-deprived son out of the water and makes the sign of the cross on his forehead. 

This is completely absurd, and involves a character behaving in an unrealistic way to trick and shock the audience. Holding a newborn underwater for thirty seconds is not anyone's definition of baptism; it more closely matches the definitions of "child abuse" or "murder". There is not a branch of religion or a human person stupid enough to do this. It's a completely unbelievable stunt that serves no purpose but to horrify its audience for a half-minute. Mission accomplished, I guess.

Season One Grade: C+

Barry (Season One)

For everyone who got here just after finishing this inaugural season of Barry....holy shit.

And for everyone else, um, welcome, I guess?

Unlike some of the other stuff I've been watching lately, Barry is a relatively easy show to explain. The main character, Barry Berkman (Bill Hader), is an ex-marine who became a hitman after his service, often applying a Boondocks Saints-like moral code to justify what he does; the people he kills are generally bad. His boss, Fuches, is friendly/chummy enough with Barry but there isn't a lot of regard for Barry's well-being there. One day, Barry's job leads him to an acting class led by Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler). Attracted by the normalcy of it all, the camaraderie of the other people in the class, the chance to have a real hobby outside of his grim job, and to one of the other students, Sally Reed (Sarah Goldberg), Barry winds up taking the class. It becomes a bright spot for his otherwise bleak existence, but obviously, the difficulties of living a double life manifest themselves, and Barry spends most of the season staving off either getting caught or killed.

Despite the high stakes, Barry is a dark comedy, and most of the episodes pack plenty of laughs in addition to big dramatic moments. You'd typically think that the Chechen mob bosses that Barry becomes involved with would make for frightening individuals (and make no mistake about it, they mean business), but Goran (Glenn Fleshler) and Noho Hank (Anthony Carrigan) provide consistent comic relief. Noho Hank is small and polite to a fault, while Goran is built like your typical hulking thug. The show gets a lot of comedy out of Goran having a normal-ish family life outside of his mob dealings, sort of like a Chechen Tony Soprano (in a nice choice of props, there's a red Cozy Coupe with goofy eyes sitting in his garage, just lurking in the background while extreme violence and murder plots take place).

The show also plays plenty of attention to Gene's personal life, including his romantic pursuit of Detective Moss (Paula Newsome), who also happens to be investigating murders to which Barry is connected. Sally gets plenty of screen time too, as her efforts to land acting gigs are thwarted by both her mediocre (at times) ability, and more painfully, Weinstein-like characters that serve as gatekeepers to important roles. If there's one thing I have to pick on with this season, it's that there's a point in the Barry/Sally storyline where her personality and attitude toward Barry seem to shift without cause. Barry's left pretty confused by the sudden change, and as the audience, we feel that confusion as well. That'd be perfectly fine had we not spent so much time getting to know Sally independent of Barry. Because we're somewhat accustomed to seeing scenes from Sally's point of view, the abrupt character change without explanation leaves something to be desired.

Barry takes a bit to find its footing, and any minor sins from the somewhat uneven early episodes are compensated for by the action and hilarity in the last four. The season's falling action is a speed rap of plot developments, all of which are given the appropriate dramatic weight and some of which will leave you gaping open-mouthed. Anchoring all of this is the fantastic performance of Hader, who absolutely disappears into the role and captures a huge array of emotions from the vacant, dead countenance he often wears early in the season to the horror, anguish, and occasional happiness he shows later on.

I feel like I'm giving out very high grades for most things I've been checking out this year, but bear in mind that for me to actually watch a show to completion and feel compelled to write about it, there's probably a bias toward things I like a lot. I don't consider myself to be a 'soft' critic of TV, it's just that I'm on a big streak of watching pretty good stuff.

Season One Grade: A-

Atypical (Season One)

Continuing the high school drama kick I'm apparently on, I checked out Atypical on Netflix, which is about an high school student named Sam -- who is on the autism spectrum -- and his family. I have very positive things to say about the show, but before I do, I feel like I need to discuss something.

After watching the show, I decided to check out some reviews online, one of which was rather scathing (and judging by the comments, the author was not alone). That review came from someone who identified themself as being on the spectrum (a very useful perspective for a show like this, to be sure) and was disappointed by the characterization of Sam. In particular they felt that Sam was portrayed as an exaggerated and stereotypical caricature who misses social cues far more often than is realistic and whose "utter lack of tact is jarring". From this perspective, I could understand why Atypical's portrayal of Sam could be seen as damaging, as people on the autism spectrum are under-represented in television and characters who are written like someone on the spectrum may not be identified as such (thinking specifically of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory). While watching the show, I did not process Sam as being representative of people on the autism spectrum in general and just thought of Sam as representative of Sam, a person with a condition that affects different people in unique ways. That's the direction from which I am reviewing Atypical, but I wanted to acknowledge the other viewpoint above because I feel it is important.

*****

Atypical is nominally the story of Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), but it quickly becomes clear that the show is just as much about his younger sister Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine), his mother Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh*), and his father Doug (Michael Rapaport). Despite spending a considerable amount of time with Sam's parents, it's a high school show, and one that runs afoul of my biggest pet peeve about high school shows: inappropriately aged actors. At the time of release, Gilchrist, Lundy-Paine, and Jenna Boyd (who plays Paige, one of Sam's potential love interests), were all 24 years old. This does a disservice to the realism** of the genre.

*I know Jennifer Jason Leigh from two things -- this show and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I am therefore only aware of her existence at two ages, 20 and 55. I feel like I am trying to see Stacy Hamilton in her face every time I watch her on this show and it's super difficult.

**In one accidentally hilarious scene, one of the over-aged high school kids tries to order a drink at a bar, only to be told, "You're clearly not 21".

That complaint aside, nearly every arc and character on this show are great, and Atypcial builds them all into fully realized characters who behave in believable ways (with one exception, which I'll get to). The principal storyline of the season is Sam's attempting to enter the dating world, which is difficult enough for anyone but is even tougher for him given his condition. He tries to work through his issues with his therapist, Julia (whom the show smartly fleshes out beyond just her interactions with Sam), and many of the dating ideas he tries out are built from their sessions together. Gilchrist's performance in the role is excellent and Sam winds up coming off likable despite some of the things he does, because you can tell he's well meaning and just trying to figure out the "rules" of something unfamiliar to him.

As fun as it is to watch Sam, his sister Casey is the show's strongest character and has the most to deal with. She's a track star who's navigating her relationship with her first boyfriend, Evan (Graham Rogers), trying to do what's best for her future track career, dealing with extreme peer pressure from her friends and coach, dealing with pretty substantial issues with each of her parents (we're not talking about typical teenage bullshit here, either), struggling with the ways that Sam's condition has altered her upbringing and family life, all while serving as Sam's de facto guardian through the harsh social waters of high school (when she's not semi-lovingly pushing him around and making fun of him herself). Casey can be very cold and biting, and usually she has a pretty good motivation for it. I think the show strikes the perfect balance between Casey's righteous rage and moments of unnecessary teenage jerkiness, making her someone who's easy to like, yet grounded in reality.

Elsa and Doug are also given quite a bit to do as the parents of these two. For years, Elsa has taken upon herself to responsibly (yet aggressively) manage Sam's autism. She attends support meetings with other parents and has a deep understanding of Sam's condition and what he goes through. She's essentially the primary caregiver, but feels stuck given that it can often be an unrewarding job (and the litany of shit thrown her way by Casey makes it all the more difficult). Her loyalty to her family and role begins being significantly tested before the curtain closes on the first episode. Doug is coming from a different place, as he's been historically uninvolved with Sam, but with Sam's newfound interest in dating, he sees a second chance to connect with his son.

The non-Gardners on the show are generally quality characters as well. Sam's friend and co-worker Zahid is something of a womanizing bonehead, but he's good for comic relief and the way he's invested in Sam's problems is legitimately endearing. Casey's boyfriend Evan has his moments as well and seems pretty relatable, especially given the situations he gets put into by Casey and the rest of the Gardners. The one character on the show that doesn't really work is Paige, who is interested in Sam but we know so little about her that it's not really clear why. Sam isn't particularly nice to her and she's openly condescending about Sam's most prominent interest (Antarctica). It would work better if Paige's affection for Sam was a little more well-developed, because as far as we can tell, she either 1) thinks he's really hot, or 2) just wants someone to label as her boyfriend. Neither of those would provide the required weight for her apparent emotional investment. Then again, I guess teenagers are goofy.

Little problems aside, Atypical has a stellar plot that seamlessly weaves in twists that pack some major highs and emotional gut-punches. This is in stark contrast to a show like, say, This Is Us, which drops random, occasionally nonsensical bombs out of nowhere just to try to give you all the feels. In Atpyical, every place the story goes seems logical and works well within the universe that the show has created for itself. With just eight half-hour episodes, the show doesn't try to do too much and spends just the right amount of time playing out each arc. It's an addictive watch that sucks you into its world and compels you to root for its characters (a happy Casey is just as satisfying as a happy Kate from Everything Sucks!). It does all of this while offering a unique perspective on our world that isn't commonly seen on television (Sam's voice-over narration is a great feature). I've seen some pretty great TV so far in 2018, and Atypical is likely to wind up near the top of the list.

Season One Grade: A

The Good Place (Seasons One and Two)

I may have wrapped up Cheers, but I wasn't ready to say good-bye to Ted Danson yet, so I decided I wanted to move on to either Fargo or The Good Place. When I discovered that there is no way to watch Fargo except on Hulu, the decision was made for me and I settled on Michael Schur's NBC comedy.

I'm going to try to go through this without spoilers, which will be difficult as there's no shortage of plot twists along the way, which vary greatly in both intrigue and predictability.

Particularly given that it's in the comedy genre, The Good Place gets extremely high marks for innovation, as the premise is unlike any I've seen before. In the premiere, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) steps into the office of someone named Michael (Danson). Eleanor learns from Michael that she has died and that the afterlife consists of a "Good Place" and a "Bad Place", and that she has wound up in the "Good Place". The system of how the afterlife works is revealed to not be in accordance with any particular religion (according to Michael, each religion only gets it about 5% right or less, but some stoned guy in Canada figured it out with 92% accuracy). Essentially, every action done by a person earns them either positive or negative points, and only the people with the very highest positive scores at the end of their life make it into the Good Place. Some of the best gags on the show include Michael bringing up screens of significant point-earning actions, such as:

• ATE VEGAN: +425.94
• NEVER DISCUSSED VEGANISM UNPROMPTED: +9,875.37
• FAIL TO DISCLOSE CAMEL ILLNESS WHEN SELLING CAMEL: -22.22
• ROOT FOR NEW YORK YANKEES: -99.15 (Schur is a huge Red Sox fan)

The central problem? Later in the pilot episode, Eleanor realizes that they took the wrong person and that she's in the Good Place by mistake. Realizing that she's a less-than-worthy person in a utopian world, she decides to take lessons from her assigned soulmate Chidi (William Jackson Harper), who was an ethics professor in life. Her hope is that she can pass as enough of a good person to survive in the Good Place without being found out as a fraud.

Eleanor and Chidi shortly meet a socialite named Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and a silent Buddhist monk named Jianyu (Manny Jacinto) and the story eventually becomes just as much about each of the other three major players as it is about Eleanor. All of them have unique challenges in adjusting to the new afterlife in the neighborhood that Michael has created for them. Furthermore, things begin to go awry within the fabric of the neighborhood when Eleanor engages in selfish behavior inconsistent with that expected of citizens of the Good Place.

The show effectively utilizes flashbacks to each of these four peoples' lives, and these add a lot of color to what each is all about. Citizens of the Good Place are served by some sort of computerized being called Janet (D'Arcy Carden), who repeatedly insists that she is neither a woman nor a robot. Despite not initially appearing to be a being with human emotion, Janet is developed into someone with almost as much personality as the rest of the gang, and her popping in and startling characters with her trademark, "Hi there" is a wonderful running gag.

The acting in the show is superb -- especially for a comedy. Danson is obviously great, as he might be the greatest sitcom actor of all time. The way Michael reacts with glee to unfamiliar human objects and conventions is delightful. Plus, there's a scene in which he tends bar! If seeing Ted Danson behind a bar doesn't give you all the feels, you've....never seen Cheers, I guess. Still, despite Danson's excellence, Kristen Bell's performance is the best; she slips perfectly into her Eleanor character and captures all the right emotions and quirks of a sorta crappy person trying her damnedest to care about other people and the underlying ethics of the things she does. I found myself saying aloud, "She's so good" many times during our viewing, usually in-between the excellent laughs that the show delivers.

This is pretty bare-bones, as it's really hard to talk at length about The Good Place without this getting spoileriffic. This is the rare comedy that makes you care just as much about the plot as getting a good laugh. I guess that makes sense, given that the stakes for the characters often involve eternal damnation. The ethical dilemmas presented on the show are consistently interesting to think about and really make you ponder both our life and the afterlife at a level deeper than you'd ever think from a network sitcom. It manages to carry that weight despite being consistently funny and charming. You can watch Season One on Netflix and Season Two on NBC's website. I don't know what you're waiting for.

Seasons One & Two Grade: A-