Michael Schur On 'The Good Place''s Finale
Michael Schur, who grew up in West Hartford, created the award-winning NBC series, “The Good Place,” which ends its fourth and final season in January. Schur talked about the show’s Connecticut roots, and about life after death, after the last episode was shot.
Q: Is "The Good Place” the “Paradise Lost” of TV sitcoms?
A: Our show will have a longer lasting, more significant impact than “Paradise Lost” — without question. (Laughs.) I explicitly set out to write a show about moral philosophy and moral reasoning, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge: to make the half-hour network sitcom about something that was weighty and inscrutable. I told NBC at the beginning that the thing that would make it special — if it works —is that we were going to talk about this stuff for real, not just make it background shading. But I promised I won’t make it feel like homework.
Michael Schur
Q: Has the show made philosophy hip?
A: One of the rewarding things is how it sparked an interest in philosophy. I’ve talked to a lot of grateful philosophy professors and students, and they’re happy there’s a visual medium — that’s also humorous — that can be a teaching tool for philosophy. On some level that was the real goal. I don’t know if we made it hip but I think we contributed to bringing it to the mainstream.
Q: How did you avoid the sticky goo of religion when you set the series in the afterlife? Have you faced any pushbacks?
A: I really haven’t, and it’s interesting that I didn’t because I assumed we would. Religion is obviously a subject in which a great many people have very strong feelings. But in one of the first shows when [the character of] Eleanor realizes she’s in the afterlife and she asks, regarding religions, “Who was right?” the character that Ted Danson plays says they were all about 5 percent right. I did that very specifically to say to the audience that this is not a show about religious beliefs. It’s a show about ethics.
Q: Blue Black Square bears a striking resemblance to the afterlife setting of “The Good Place.” I think it even has a yogurt shop.
A: Most places in America do. I left West Hartford in 1993, and the transformation of the town happened after I was gone. The point of [the show’s setting]l was that we wanted it to look very quaint, idyllic, safe and cozy — and those are the feelings that I associate with West Hartford.