10 Years Later, NBC's 4-Season Philosophical Comedy Deserves Its Masterpiece Status

When discussing the 21st century's comedy masterpieces, an elite selection of very different TV shows spring to mind. The Office, Peep Show, and Fleabag are often mentioned as contenders, but while all three are worthy, one vital series often gets overlooked. Originally premiering on NBC in 2016, this series aired for four seasons before concluding with a satisfying finale.

Since then, this deeply philosophical comedy has continued to find new followers (and reaffirm the faith of existing ones) on streaming. With 2026 marking the show's tenth anniversary, it's clearer than ever that The Good Place deserves its status as a masterpiece of modern comedy.

The Good Place's Blend Of Comedy & Philosophy Was Quietly Revolutionary

It's not easy to make people laugh with philosophy. Something about Kantian ethics and utilitarian doctrine doesn't automatically get the chuckles flowing, and only a precious few geniuses have been able to make the combination successful, Monty Python among them.

In 2016, The Good Place dared to go further, basing a sitcom not just around core principles of philosophy, but a deeper exploration of morality and our cultural perspective on the afterlife. Hilarious stuff for those who studied ethics, potentially tedious for the rest of us who wouldn't know their empiricism from their existentialism.

But The Good Place made it work. By limiting the philosophical expertise to, essentially, two characters (Chidi and Janet), and positioning the rest of Eleanor's gang as mere students, the audience was guided gently along the path of comedic enlightenment.

One way or another, most comedy is designed to make sense of the world around us. By successfully incorporating philosophy into its DNA, The Good Place achieved that far better than its sitcom rivals. "Life-affirming" means different things to different viewers, but The Good Place's poignant ending(s) sparked lightbulb moments and uncontrollable laughter in equal measure, leaving those who experienced all four seasons in full walking away having gained more than just entertainment and levity.

The Good Place's Worldbuilding Was Among Its Greatest Assets

Most TV comedies have the luxury of barely venturing beyond the same four or five rooms. Even those that do typically stick to a single real-world city or town. The Good Place rested entirely upon a complex and well-constructed mythology. Far more than just a "heaven and hell" show, The Good Place was home to layers of hell masquerading as heaven, a Medium Place, multiple timelines in the real world, hundreds of timelines in the afterlife, a judge's realm, the Janet realm, a big train, and the Jeremy Bearimy.

The Good Place represented that rare thing of a comedy series with the level of mythology more typically associated with high fantasy or a show like Lost. But therein lies one of its greatest strengths. The gags landed, the philosophy was smart, and the characters became like family, but it was the fictional world that gripped like a magnet from beginning to end.

Essentially a dream world of limitless possibilities, the hellish truth lurking beneath the surface made The Good Place's setting both a blessing and a danger. In a show where you never knew whether to expect flying shellfish or a giant hellmouth opening in the ground, ideas were never in short supply. And with each season following a different premise, The Good Place deftly avoided that all-too-common sitcom-killer: repetition.