All right, chili babies, let’s all take a moment to relax those shoulders and forking exhale, for NBC has renewed The Good Place for a fourth season. It’s only the second show to secure a spot on the 2019-20 schedule thus far, following network darling Will & Grace. There are no details just yet regarding an official episode order or a confirmed time slot, but Mike Schur’s philosophical comedy has maintained its Thursday night glory and 13-episode arc for three seasons now. It appears to be a winning formula, as the show currently reigns as NBC’s highest rated comedy.
For season three fans followed the Soul Squad, led by Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, back to Earth on the quest to redeem their potentially damned souls. While such a drastic turn of events could have easily tanked more formulaic sitcoms, Schur and the gang have shown that there are still plenty of stories left to tell (and let’s hope that one of those stories is a well-deserved sequel to “The Ballad of Donkey Doug”). Combined with a TCA win for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, along with Danson’s Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, the decision to let them live another day was likely one of their easier ones.
The good news comes just in time for the last episode of the fall, which airs this Thursday. The series will return in January to air the remaining three episodes of the season, leaving fans to wonder exactly how many good points must we rack up to get just a few more episodes.
[Via THR]
99 Comments
On one hand, I’m always disappointed that there are so few episodes in a season. On the other hand, this is a show that has no interest in spinning its wheels. Having a bunch of filler episodes could be the death of it.
I agree, I can always use more Good Place, but it seems like each season covers a specific ground and is set in a different “place” with a particular storyline/strain of philosophy to cover. So filler episodes might ruin the planning of each season.
Other benefit of the 13 episode seasons: it gives Kristen Bell some free time to make new Veronica Mars episodes
Wait, are there more Veronica Mars episodes coming? I’m halfway through my first watch of Season 1 right now and loving it so far.
Yes, there is a new Veronica Mars miniseries in development that I am looking forward to. Though I need to catch up on the show too–I have only watched the first season, which I loved, & haven’t gotten to the 2nd season or the movie yet.
Ha, awesome! This keeps working out for me really well. They announced the Gilmore Girls continuation two seasons into my first watch through and now this. I should start soliciting payments from die hard fans of classic TV shows with the guarantee that if I watch it it will bring the show back .
Start watching Happy Endings.Take my money!
Can I interest you in a bizarre but great scifi show called Farscape?
Christ, I know she’s youthful looking, but how many more times can she pretend she’s still in high school before it strains credulity?
There was a time-jump before the Veronica Mars movie, she is post-college now
season 3 has been filler episodes almost exclusively
Ms. Bell said in an interview (maybe on The Good Place podcast?) that she has in her contract that it would never be more than 18 episodes. I wish we had more but I’d rather be wishing for more than rolling my eyes at the lame ones…
Son of a bench, am I glad! As much as I pretend not to give a shirt, The Good Place is pretty forking awesome.
Rejoice, my little chili babies!
Didn’t even wanna play your own masterpiece? *farts*
Woooo! *produces Molotov cocktail out of nowhere, hurls it into comments section*
Bortles!
Jacksonville! That’s like…two million points!
Now you’ve got a completely new problem!
In more immediate Place news, this week’s episode is called “Janet(s)“.Which will mean…. oh, who cares? Lots of Janets? A Good Janet vs Bad Janet rap battle? A Janet origin story, complete with L’il Janet cartoon intro?It’s going to have a lot of Ms. Carden, I assume, so…. it’ll be good.
It’s all about me, me, ME!
Mya, is that you? (This isn’t the late 90s – stop pretending to be ‘Janet’)
Janets making out!
oh shit that’s right! This week we get to see inside Janet’s void! (which sounds way dirty now typing it out). It’s been so long since the last new episode I forgot. Am really looking forward to seeing what goes on in a Janet Void.
Is there room in this theory for Michael’s mid-life crisis Janet?
Is there room in this theory for Michael’s mid-life crisis Janet?
Perhaps the gang will all have to pretend to be Janets, like when they pretended to be demons.
Are we sure it isn’t Janet(s) as in “they’re going to Janet’s”? I mean they are all going to her void. And that sounds a bit dirtier than expected.
I’m hoping we also get Derek. Or, dare I hope, Maximum Derek!
I cold totally be making this up, but for some reason I remember Mike Schur saying that the Good Place was only planned for a 4 season story…
I remember hearing 5, but I could be wrong. Let’s see what happens if the network INSISTS he go a season or two beyond his planned timeframe…
Five seasons is what I heard as well. I guess we’ll see.
I heard 6.25 seasons including July or Tuesday or sometimes nothing.
Six seasons and a movie!
That broke me.
This comment is the correct comment.
I heard Jeremy Bearimy seasons.
I think 5 seasons is the sweet spot for a television series, personally, so I’m hoping that’s what it turns out to be. I’m not sure how it’s going to stretch out to five though…one season in the true Good Place, presumably, but where else is there to go?
I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be seven. But I’m too lazy today to find the reference.
I’m pretty sure he said 7. But that sounds ludicrous to me, so I’m not sure.https://www.cinemablend.com/television/1635110/how-many-seasons-the-good-place-showrunner-has-planned-according-to-kristen-bell
Six seasons and a movie!(Somebody had to do it.)
I received a Community notification for this?
Six seasons and a movie.
I think Kristen Bell said that in her WTF episode.
Where are we on Jeremy Bearimy?
It would have been a forking tragedy if they had cancelled this.
Cancelling The Good Place would have been hot, stinky cat dookie
Oofta
HELL YES
BAD PLACE YES
Hot Diggity Dog.
Oh no, now “hot diggity dog” will always be the thing you said when this show got renewed (and that Eleanor said when Chidi kissed her)
That’s what I said!
So we’re getting 13 new episodes – but first we have to suffer through a long LONG wait with no new episodes from January all the way until … Oh! They are forking with us! *This* is the bad place!
No, this is the Medium Place. Now let’s watch Cannonball Run 2.
this is the Medium Place.—- The A.V. Club
No, it’s just Tuesday.
Oh whew, I was afraid those 20 articles a week here wouldn’t get the job done.
Oh whew, I was afraid those 20 articles a week here wouldn’t get the job done.
So afraid you posted twice!
Only an American network would think “new episode, two weeks break, new episode, month long break, final three episodes of the season” was an effective airing strategy.
On the other hand, there’s the British airing schedule:
The thing is, it is. Americans don’t watch new TV on big Holidays and tend to skip a lot of TV in December because they are shopping, at parties or just out looking at Christmas lights and crap. When we do watch TV it’s sports and Christmas movies. Years and years of experiments and research has gone into how shows are put on TV and popular shows are only on when they can be laser focused on getting the most viewers
Yeah, but we’re now watching online. I stream this on Hulu, I don’t watch it live. I’d be willing to bet those studies are a little out of date. We Americans now stream the shit out of TV on the weekends.
True but the ad model for streaming is completely different Those still watching network TV the old fashion way still have the same habits and that’s what dictates the schedule
Cool, so are we supposed to be changing everything to suit your needs today, or can we prepare a little first?
Sure, but it’s weird to air one *every week* for 8 weeks, then a 2 week break, then 1 episode, then a month off.
It’s so dumb. I’m excited to get the new episode but they should’ve just stopped with the last pre-Thanksgiving episode and aired the last block of 4 in the new year.
Well, it’s the network’s highest rated comedy, so maybe they know what they’re doing? And maybe you could just STFU and watch the show?
Holy shit, you’re an angry little troll.
Ok.
Holy motherforking shirtballs!
This is so… Derek!
Ugh. I watched the first two seasons in record binge-time on Netflix, then got caught up just as Season 3 was about to start. Set a season pass on my DVR and… nothing. No matter what I do, my stupid box will NOT record this show for anything. I managed to snag the first episode by manually telling it to record right as it was starting, but the others have managed to elude me. I tried to download one episode via VOD and it worked, but only lasted two days before it was self-deleted. So now I am torn between waiting until the season shows up on Netflix, if it ever does… or dusting off the old Roku and watching it with the stupid horrible repetitive commercials on the NBC channel app.
One night my wife couldn’t sleep and turned this on and decided to wake me up half way through the first episode so I could watch it because it was so funny. We quickly got caught up and are loving season 4.
Unless you’re in a different point of the Jeremy Bearimy time continuum than me, you’re enjoying season 3. But the main thing is welcome aboard and spread the good word! Great shows deserve to be successful. It leads to more great shows.
It’s Tuesday so we are on the dot. 🙂
I’ve got this gif on reserve in case the show gets cancelled before Schur is done telling the story he wants to.
Wait until the last episode, then get Hulu for a month — you can also get a free month if you haven’t already, just remember to cancel. Or just buy it on Amazon! 🙂
In the UK it’s already on Netflix.
The previous seasons are on Netflix in the US, too.
Use Hulu..it comes on the next morning at like 5am
The word “fork” isn’t anywhere in this headline! Progress!
Admittedly it’s in the very first sentence of the article as a kind-of-pointless modifier – but! Progress!
A little surprising only Good Place and Will & Grace are confirmed to be coming back, given that both are in the bottom third on NBC in terms of ratings and viewers. In terms of viewers, Good Place is only beating Blindspot and Midnight, Texas, the latter of which I really doubt will be back since it’s dead last in ratings for the network and it’s the only NBC show averaging less than 2 million viewers an episode.
I got really curious about that sentence that implied The Good Place was NBC’s highest rated sitcom, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.
I was pleasantly surprised but it doesn’t seem to be in the 18-49, my skimming didn’t find total viewing numbers, and I would feel safe to assume it’s their best rated critically but I don’t know if people use RT as much for TV as film?
“given that both are in the bottom third on NBC in terms of ratings and viewers.”Well…“the show currently reigns as NBC’s highest rated comedy”.
Some people read the articles before posting. Good on you for bucking that trend.
This season is a bit of a hodgepodge. I mean, it’s not been as funny as the last 2.
The good news comes just in time for the last episode of the fall, which airs this Thursday.
“leaving fans to wonder exactly how many good points must we rack up to get just a few more episodes.”
Um, isn’t this an article about the very fact that we know we’re going to get more episodes?
I’m tickled pleurigloss!