Creator Michael Schur’s newest NBC comedy may deal heavily with what comes after death, but if you’re looking for a show about religion, this isn’t it.
When fans tune into the pilot for The Good Place, they’ll meet Kristen Bell’s Eleanor, a young woman who suddenly finds herself in the afterlife designated for good people, aptly named the Good Place. And despite the fact that we quickly learn that there’s a Good Place for good people and a Bad Place for bad people, you’ll find no parallels to religion– or even heaven or hell– here. Hypable was on hand at the roundtables at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con when Schur explained this, point blank.
“We wanted to make it very clear right at the beginning that this is not any specific religion’s view of the afterlife,” explained Schur during a press conference for The Good Place at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.
Instead, Schur divulged that he wanted the show to be more about the moral dilemma, rather than the idea that your religious beliefs could sway the way you choose to lead your life while you’re alive and kicking.
At the heart of everything, both Schur and his director, Drew Goddard, agree that The Good Place is a show about ethics. That’s something that’ll become more apparent as the audience joins Bell’s Eleanor on her journey to discover the good person she knows lies deep within her despite the fact that she wasn’t a very good person when she was alive.
“It’s an ethical show in that the stuff that Eleanor does to try and prove herself isn’t going to become more familiar with this or that religion world view,” explained Schur. “It’s, ‘I’m going to read this or that philosopher’s [ideas] on ethics or moral practice and I’m going to try and gleam how to become a better person from that.’”
As for the Good Place itself, fans will notice right off the bat that the series has imagined an afterlife of their very own— one that very much suits the theme of the show. And when that afterlife starts crumbling over the notion that it instinctively knows Eleanor isn’t supposed to be there, things get a bit wild.
Because of that, director Drew Goddard said that shooting the pilot — which features a scene that includes giant lady bugs and humongous frogs eating flying cocktail strip shooting across the sky — and the whole season, for that matter, was very much a balancing act.
“It does start with characters,” explained Goddard of balancing things out stylistically. “I said to Mike, ‘I don’t want to feel the director’s presence on this — the idea is so bold, you don’t need me to progressively announce that here I am as a director in each shot.”
The careful balance of the characters and this imaginative afterlife Schur has created is ultimately why the show is such a blast to make.
“I think we have so much fun making this show rewatchable,” said Goddard. “We’re constantly looking for ways to make it funnier.”
One thing’s for sure, when The Good Place starts up this fall, fans can expect copious amounts of cliffhangers along with barrels of laughs as they go along with Eleanor on her journey to becoming a better person.
The Good Place premieres September 19 on NBC.