Review: Can 'The Good Place' find a better one?

If only The Good Place were as good as we had hoped.

We had reason to expect a lot from NBC's new sitcom (previewing Monday, 10 ET/PT, then Thursdays, 8:30;  ** 1/2 out of four), with a cast led by Kristen Bell and Ted Danson and a creative team led by Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Michael Schur. And the first episode that airs Monday, though a bit heavy on exposition, offers the strong promise of an amusing, thoughtful, thankfully different series to come.

But then I watched four more episodes of this heavily serialized comedy and saw much of that promise dribble away. You still get the “thoughtful” and “different” part, and you still get to spend time with the always welcome Danson and Bell. But you get "funny" only in fits and starts, and you get too few scenes in which the characters connect emotionally.

The setup is a workplace comedy —a genre Schur knows well — with a heavenly twist. Having led a shockingly uninspired life, Eleanor (Bell) finds herself dead, and (even more shocking) in “the good place.” She is welcomed by Michael (Danson), a seemingly angelic, innocent being in human form who tells her she’s been rewarded with an eternal spot in a blissful world created just for her. It even comes complete with an incredibly sweet, eager soulmate Chidi (William Jackson Harper, adorable as Good’s most likable character).

There’s only one problem: Eleanor knows a mistake has been made. Certainly it’s hard to justify her spot here, especially compared to Chidi or her neighbors, the aggressively cheerful Tahani (Jameela Jamil) or her silent-monk soulmate Jianyu (Manny Jacinto).

Eleanor’s solution is to get Chidi to teach her how to be a good person. In the meantime, however, she needs him to help her hide her secret from Michael and his assistant, Janet (D’Arcy Carden).

Schur has created a wonderfully full-bodied fantasy universe, complete with any number of witty flourishes, from Eleanor’s constant (failed) attempts to swear to Michael’s fascination with human eccentricities, including suspenders. He’s given his main character the kind of self-improvement motivation that has inspired some of the greatest comedies, from Pygmalion to Groundhog Day. And he’s poured all of that creativity into what amounts to a comedy miniseries, with each episode picking up immediately after the last.

Unfortunately, little of it seems to stick. With each episode, it becomes harder to root for Eleanor, a fairly terrible person on earth who seems likely to destroy the afterlife for everyone around her, Michael included. And rather than help the show's cause, some of the twists added later to gain her a few key allies only make matters worse.

And yet, if hope is seriously diminished, it’s not all lost. There’s that cast, for one thing, which is one of the new season’s best. And there’s the serialized structure that means we’re just at the start of a continuing story that could still add a few surprises. Hey, it could even get funnier.

So while I may not be as hooked on Good as I had expected, I’m not ready to give up on it, either. Patience, unlike hope, does not spring eternal — but it can hold out for a few more episodes.

Now let's see if viewers land in the same place.