I recently re-watched the TV series The Good Life which I have praised highly in the past but did not discuss the way it ended because I did not want to spoil it for others. But since almost two years have passed since it ended, I feel that it is safe to do so.
Those who watched the entire series know that it begins with four people who have died being fooled into thinking that they have entered the ‘Good Place’, which is a euphemism for a heaven but without a deity, because they have lived exceptional lives on Earth. But in reality they are in the ‘Bad Place’ (a euphemism for hell) as part of an elaborate hoax by demons who are experimenting with a new form of torture in which they get people to torture each other by making each others’ lives miserable by squabbling over all manner of things. You know, just like people do on Earth. Most of the series involves the four, after they discover the hoax, trying to figure out how to get into the real Good Place and avoid eternal torment.
At the end, the main characters finally enter the real Good Place only to find that everyone there is bored out of their minds. An eternity of having all one’s desires satisfied turns out to be soul-killing. In this clip the philosopher Hypatia of Alexandra (Lisa Kudrow) explains the problem.
So what can they do?
Ending a show like this is not easy. How the writers deal with it is to have the four arrange for the creation of a portal through which people can walk through when they are tired of living in the Good Place. What lies on the other side? No one really knows but the implication is that one’s physical manifestation ceases to exist and one’s essence returns to the universe, like a wave that has a tangible shape and form but then disappears and returns to the sea. (That metaphor is actually used in the show.)
The point is that you get to choose when to go through the door and the fact that there is or can be an end to their existence is what creates meaning for people in the Good Place (and by implication for those of us on Earth) and brings back joy to their lives.
The ending seems to be supportive of the idea that the atoms that make up our bodies remain of course, just like the water molecules in the wave, but we eventually cease to exist in any recognizable form. What the show has fantasized is that the Good Place is transition state between life on Earth and the final state of non-existence. It also seems to advocate for euthanasia, because people get to choose their moment of exit. These views, and the idea that heaven is a boring place that people want to escape from, and the absence of Jesus and God, run contrary to much of what Christians in America believe and so I was a little surprised that this show that ran on mainstream TV aimed at the general public was so popular and did not arouse much controversy, though there were some expressions of concern.
Here is a scene after Chidi (Willian Jackson Harper) tells Eleanor (Kristin Bell) that he has decided that it is time for him to go through the portal and tries to console her because she is sad that he is leaving her.
And here is Eleanor later when she decides its time for her to go through the door. She talks with Janet (D’Arcy Carden), who is an all-knowing, all-powerful assistant to the inhabitants of the Good Place. Michael (Ted Danson) is a demon who originally designed the hoax to torment them but then reforms and becomes their ally in the quest to get into the Good Place. At the end, he gets his wish to see what it is like to be a real human being. He is made into one and is sent to live on Earth.
The performances of the entire cast were excellent. There are very few shows that I can watch again with a level of enjoyment close to the first time and this was one of them. The fact that I knew how it ended did not spoil it for me, so maybe these spoilers do not matter.
The great thing about myths is that you can tweak them to express whatever your own views are. So a believer will imagine a place of eternal happiness. An atheist will imagine an eternity of boredom (“who needs heaven anyway?”).
If indeed one could have one’s desires satisfied, one could presumably desire to be challenged, and constantly have new experiences. If you’re given an eternally healthy body and mind, I can’t imagine getting bored, unless you artificially impose restrictions on your experiences. I can’t say how I’d feel after a few millennia, but I certainly wouldn’t assume it would be soul-killing.
I agree; it’s paradoxical to claim that being too happy makes one discontented.
Or: if one is bored out of one’s mind, one can hardly claim to be happy and to have every desire satisfied, in particular the desire to not be bored is unsatisfied.
I’ll take that “torture” any day instead of regular torture that actually causes pain and suffering, whether physical or mental.
(I quite like squabbling)
John @3:
I hadn’t noticed.
But more seriously, yes, heaven for one person can indeed be a kind of hell for others 😉
Huh. I didn’t bold that last sentence.
[I corrected it-Mano]
In a world where people get upset over spoilers for movies that are decades old, you’re playing with fire waiting just two years. We also live in a world where people will read the comments under a video, a place to discuss what was just watched, then get angry at people who posted about things that happened in the video because spoilers. I’m waiting for the day that someone starts shouting in a movie theater that the movie itself is full of spoilers for the movie.
Anyway, the Good Place is the kind of afterlife I could get behind, one that doesn’t require eternal existence.
Hmm. The Good Life is a different TV show (which I saw bits of, unlike as of yet The Good Place) -- you can make your own mind up (which was part of its charm) about whether it is a depiction of heaven or hell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_series)
I can’t help but feel like this also illustrates our inability to comprehend a state of existence significantly different from the one we have now.
If there is a “good place”, why on earth would it have milk shakes? Milk shakes only exist in the kind of world we have here; with physics, digestive systems, taste buds, and cows. Without those things, a “milk shake” just isn’t a thing at all.
If you couldn’t have a desire for your existence to end satisfied, then obviously it’s not the case the every possible desire would be satisfiable. Even if you think ten million years would be okay, you’re still not imagining an existence that can’t end, which seems like a totally different story to me. And personally, I like that they were not afraid to endorse assisted suicide as a genuinely moral option.
Well, that involved some actual pain and suffering too. You haven’t watched the show, and suffice it to say that Mano’s description isn’t capturing everything about it. It’s not meant to be too different from the modern life under capitalism (on Earth) which it is criticizing, except that lots of very weird/surreal things happen in it.
In any case, this was an experiment which was a repeated and abject failure, for a variety of reasons, particularly because the subjects often came to like each other or at least learned to live with each other. (Also, discover the nature of the experiment, concoct plans to escape, undermine it, etc.)
Much of the humor derives from the fact that, like nearly every character, the demons are bumbling idiots. At the same time, there’s reason to genuinely care about Michael (Ted Danson’s character), who came up with this silly idea, because he’s so worried about being severely punished for his incompetence. He’s got an interesting arc, as he becomes a helpful (but still inept) friend to Eleanor and co. (also inept).
In other parts of The Bad Place, where they’re not running that experiment, people are tortured by the demons in a slightly more “traditional” sense, but generally those choices are pretty absurd too.
LykeX @8
I have zero interest in an afterlife where I’m not still me, and I enjoy milkshakes. If an afterlife existed where we’d be something else so alien that we wouldn’t want to enjoy the pleasures we enjoy now, then there’s no point in that afterlife. I’d be fine with not needing to eat, but not wanting to is a whole different thing.
This is one of the reasons I’ve never found the concept of reincarnation appealing.
“maybe these spoilers do not matter.”
AfaIc they don’t. I was hardly interested when you recommended it and now am sure that I don’t care. Perhaps that’s because unlike you I’m not an ex-christian -- I’ve never been baptized.
So thanks for helping me to decide that I won’t watch it ever.
mnbo, I was baptized as a baby but religion wasn’t part of my upbringing beyond a short grace at supper because my dad thought it was the best way to make sure everyone was sitting before we ate. We didn’t go to church or study the bible or any of that nonsense. My parents weren’t atheists but religion just never came up. This is a good, smart show. It’s your choice whether to watch it or not, and you could well not enjoy it, but it’s silly to refuse to give it a try just to make a point.
It reminds me of children (or even many adults) who believe that they dislike the taste of a vegetable, without ever actually tasting one.
Adding to that…. If you were led to believe that the show is somehow promoting religious apologetics or some such thing, then you could not be more clueless. I get the feeling that some see a word like “afterlife” (but apparently not “comedy,” etc.), then their brains just short-circuit.
I wonder if he also avoids The Life of Brian for it’s, ahem, christian apologetics.