Movies - TV
The Good Place’s Big Twist Happened In The Twilight Zone Decades Earlier
By MICHAEL BOYLE
“The Twilight Zone” has profoundly affected pop culture even 60 years later. The series’ stories have inspired many TV shows, including possibly “The Good Place.”
The hit 2016 sitcom is based on the premise that bad people are mistakenly sent to heaven. However, the show later reveals that the characters were in the Bad Place the whole time.
This idea is similar to a Season 1 episode of “The Twilight Zone,” entitled “A Nice Place to Visit,” which sees the criminal Rocky getting shot during a burglary gone wrong.
Rocky is visited by an apparent angel, Pip, who takes him to a place that seems like heaven, where everything goes his way. Rocky soon becomes bored and frustrated with this life.
By the end, Rocky gets so frustrated he asks Pip to take him to “the other place.” Pip reveals that the criminal has been in “the other place” the whole time.
While these premises seem similar, “The Good Place” showrunner Michael Schur has never claimed “A Nice Place to Visit” as his inspiration for the show.
Instead, Schur pointed to Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play “No Exit,” which presents a version of hell in which three people are trapped together in a room for eternity.
However, there’s a difference between these two stories — “The Good Place” is more optimistic and sees its characters become better people, proving itself to
be unique.