According to Deadline, Ted Danson (Cheers, Three Men and Baby), while giving it up for the architects of NBC’s The Good Place, stated that the writers had ethics professors on speed dial to further the show’s accuracy during production. While speaking on his Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Danson went over the lengths comedy writers would go to ensure the characters’ ethical dilemmas in the series were handled right as they navigated through their afterlives.
“On speed dial, we had three or four ethics professors who would talk to the writers daily to make sure what we were talking about was right,” said Danson, as co-host Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games, Now You See Me) added, “Sometimes it’s good to get a second, third opinion.”
While noting that the University of Notre Dame offered a course on the series in 2019, Danson said, “Who knew? It’s taught, The Good Place is taught in some universities as part of their ethics programs.”
The Good Place is created by Micheal Schur (Parks and Recreation, The Office) and follows Eleanor Shellstrop, a dead woman who is placed in a Heaven-esque utopian afterlife designed and supervised by afterlife “architect” Michael. Although she is happy to be in The Good Place, she is extremely surprised she was chosen to be there amongst her not-so-perfect neighbors.
The cast of the series includes Danson as Micheal, Kristen Bell (The Tiny Chef Show, Veronica Mars) as Eleanor, William Jackson Harper (Little Demon, Dogs in Space) as Chidi, Jameela Jamil (Clone High, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law) as Tahani, Manny Jacinto (I Want You Back, Nine Perfect Strangers) as Jason, D’Arcy Carden (Turn Me On, Barry) as Janet, Marc Evan Jackson (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Kong Skull Island) as Shawn and Tiya Sircar (A Gingerbread Christmas, The Internship) as Vicky.
The Good Place is available to stream on Netflix.