If your weekend plan is to binge-watch whatever pops up first on Netflix, here's an excellent recommendation: The Good Place, a comedic and philosophical series starring Kristen Bell. Want to know what it's about? Read on...
The Premise
The Good Place centers on Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a woman who has just died and wakes up in the afterlife. She soon meets her mentor Michael (Ted Danson), who tells her she now resides in "The Good Place", an area designed for those who did good deeds in their past life. Michael congratulates her on her good actions and takes her to her new home, where she meets her soulmate, Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper). But Eleanor realizes she was sent there by mistake, since she never did good deeds in her life—quite the opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/RfBgT5djaQwCreated by Mike Schur (The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), The Good Place is the perfect blend of comedy, philosophy, and ethics. Eleanor is a selfish woman who must hide her morally imperfect behavior and try to become a better person to be worthy of staying in The Good Place. To do so, she has the help of Chidi, her soulmate who was a university ethics professor, who agrees to teach Eleanor to become a better person to earn her place.
Philosophy and Ethics
Each episode of The Good Place is built around Chidi's lessons to help Eleanor become a better person. Here, moral philosophy becomes the heart of the show, covering ideas from classic philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume, among others. A prime example is the brilliant episode "The Trolley Problem," which debates the trolley dilemma, devised by Philippa Foot: a runaway trolley is heading toward a group of workers on the tracks who will be killed unless you press a button to divert the trolley to a side track where it will kill only one person. So, what's better? Letting a group of people die by accident and inaction, or actively killing a single person?
Questions like these are common currency in the series, where the creative use of ethics and philosophy manages to be entertaining. Not to mention the rest of the cast, like Eleanor's neighbors Tahani and Jianyu Li, or Janet, a super charismatic guide with infinite knowledge of the universe. The show debuted in 2016 and recently finished its second season, but don't worry: it's been renewed for a third season, which will likely premiere this September. So if you're into philosophy and ethics, or you're simply looking for a comedy that stands out from the pack, head to Netflix, where both seasons of The Good Place are waiting for you. Enjoy!
Official site: The Good Place
