Series · Prime Video · 2016
The Good Place
A comedy that believes moral improvement is real. It borrows the philosophy and misplaces the judge.
Almost no sitcom thinks you should become a better person and then shows the homework. This one does, with flashcards. The hole is the judge. A point system is not a god, and a self-improvement arc is not repentance. Still, it aims at the good, and television rarely does.
Watch it, then supply the judge it is missing. The show will not.
The eight
Industry
5/10
Study is the plot. They read. They practice.
Household
6/10
A made family of people who were failures on earth.
Piety
4/10
It wants the afterlife and will not say whose. The points system is the tell.
Courage
6/10
Becoming decent is treated as hard, which is the brave part.
Republic
5/10
Ethics as a civic problem: what we owe other people.
Temperance
6/10
The joke is at their vices, and the vices are supposed to shrink.
Truth
6/10
It is serious about the question and light about the homework.
Stewardship
5/10
The hope is that a person can be handed back better. The ending argues about who gets to decide.
Live historicallyPick one concrete habit the flashcards would actually name, and do it for a week.