Heaven

In these awful news stories times, I have been watching “The Good Place,” a light comedy that’s well crafted, theatrical, but substantive enough and takes place in…the after life! (dum, dum, dah!) Kristen Bell is the leader navigating these new waters, and wow, she knows this character, it is so in her wheel house. And it’s a complete pleasure to watch her expertise at work. The show is well written, the premise and the characters actually deepen, and the cast is diverse. Sold, dudes. I’m totally sold. Ted Danson is great in it as well, and he’s had a long career under the radar, always working and consistently good. (Side story: I was in his orbit for one episode of TV I shot years ago. It was 3 in the freaking morning and he was doing a scene of casual conversation with his co-star, but you need so much energy in the middle of the night, he asked for some protein, turkey rolls before Take Kajillion. Friend #1 was on fire that night [I was Friend #2]. He asked Friend #1 if she was tired and she said “there’s no place I’d rather be.” Wow. Quite frequently, I am not like the people around me but that was a fun experience.) I had to watch like four episodes in a row the other night to convince myself it was worth getting up out of bed to do the dishes…again. (Yet another aside: I finally saw one apartment that was crazy-messier than ours, with four kids, three cats, and piles of clean laundry on every available surface. The father would be horrified that I’m saying this because he was already horrified when I said I needed to use their bathroom at the block party. I was only excited because most apartments are not as messier than ours, and I finally got to find one EVEN MESSIER! I HAVE REACHED SOME OBSCURE LEVEL OF NIRVANA! You guys, see? Life is worth living.)