20 Best TV Shows Of 2017

4. The Good Place

The Good Place
NBC

The Good Place started off in 2016 as a funny, high-concept sitcom, but one where it wasn't immediately clear just how much it had in the tank. 2017, and more specifically the Season 1 finale, completely changed the game on that front, and made The Good Place great in the process.

Coming from Michael Schur (Parks and Rec, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) it is stupendously hilarious, with the gags coming thick and fast from a variety of sources and in all manner of styles, with lines destined to be endlessly quoted online. So too is there a natural warmth to the show and its characters that gives you little choice but to root for them, with an electric chemistry between the cast (and Ted Danson living up to his sitcom legend status).

With its layered reveals and genius twists, the show becomes an endless loop of shrimp cocktails, fro-yos, and "Hi I'm Janet" (there is not a better comedic performance on TV right now than D'Arcy Carden). It's a tale of trying to be ethically and morally right, a question of the afterlife, and a fiendishly funny, absurd, and above all smart sitcom that's quite unlike anything else around right now.

Holy mother-forking shirtballs, indeed.

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Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.