THE GOOD PLACE.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: TV - Television program review - Brief article

A zany comedy about a dead con artist accidentally sent to heaven would seem like an odd place for deep insights about ethics, the capacity for people to grow and change, and the failures of central planning to account for human ingenuity. But there's no better way to describe The Good Place, a remarkable high-concept NBC show that wrings laughs out of challenging complex moral philosophies and simplistic attitudes about human behavior.

The Good Place tells the story of Eleanor (Kristen Bell), an absolutely terrible person who dies and, due to an apparent afterlife snafu, is mistaken for a much, much better person. She finds herself connected to an ethics professor named...