20th Television

Lore & Background

In the ecosystem of American television, 20th Television occupies the role of the big-studio producer: the entity that turns a writer's pitch into a funded, scheduled, multi-season reality. For The Good Place, that meant providing the studio stages in the Los Angeles area where the elaborate afterlife sets were built, the post-production pipeline for the show's frequent reality-shifts and visual gags, and the business-and-legal scaffolding that kept a four-season run on track while the creative team chased increasingly wild ideas.

The company's lineage back to 20th Century Fox Television meant it brought decades of experience producing hit comedies and dramas, a track record that gave NBC confidence in the project from the pilot stage. Michael Schur, already beloved for Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, was a natural fit for the studio's brand of smart, character-driven comedy. The Good Place became one of the marquee titles in 20th Television's slate during its run, and the show's critical success—multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations—reflected well on the production partnership as a whole.

After the Disney-Fox merger reshaped the industry landscape, 20th Television continued operating under its new name, carrying forward the production legacy that included The Good Place among its catalog of acclaimed series. For fans, the company's name on the credits is a small but meaningful thread connecting the show to the broader machine of television production that made it possible.

In Their Own Story

The studio lot is quiet after the call. A production coordinator walks the long corridor between Stage 7 and the post-production bay, past the half-dismantled set of the Good Place's main dining hall—those impossibly cheerful yellow walls, the little potted succulents, the table where four people argued about ethics for an entire season. She clips a production report to a binder. Somewhere down the hall, a sound editor is still mixing the faint hum of the afterlife's ambient track. The Good Place, for all its cosmic stakes, was built by people in fluorescent-lit offices, arguing about schedule and budget, making sure the lighting on the 'chocolate cake' scene matched the one from three episodes ago. The coordinator smiles, files the report, and walks back toward the parking lot where her car waits under the California sun. The afterlife will keep its secrets. The studio lot, at least, goes home at five.

Reader's Guide

If you've ever wondered how a show that constantly shifts its own reality actually gets made on a fixed studio stage, 20th Television's production infrastructure is part of the answer. The company provided the physical stages and backlot space where the Good Place's sets were constructed and, crucially, rebuilt. Michael Schur and his design team have spoken in interviews about the challenge of making the afterlife feel both mundane and magical—warm color palettes, slightly-too-perfect furniture, and a sense of 'this is a real place someone would live' even though it's a fantasy. The production team had to modularity-build sets so they could be reconfigured between the Good Place, the Bad Place, and the various 'reality' iterations without blowing the schedule.

Schur has described the writing room as a collaborative, almost workshop-like environment, with the core team breaking stories together before anyone wrote a draft. The ensemble cast—Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, and William Jackson Harper—were brought in early and given creative input, which the production structure at 20th Television supported by keeping the cast on set for extended blocks rather than the typical two-week shoot cycles.

One of the most talked-about behind-the-scenes details is how the show's frequent 'reality shifts' required the production team to track continuity across multiple versions of the same set. Props departments maintained parallel inventories, and the post-production team at 20th Television's facilities handled the visual effects that made the shifts seamless. The result was a show that felt effortless on screen but was, in production, a logistical ballet.

Did You Know?

• 20th Television was formerly known as 20th Century Fox Television before the Disney-Fox merger rebranded the division in 2019.
• The Good Place was a co-production between 20th Television and Michael Schur's own banner, Deedle-Dee Productions, giving the creator significant input into production decisions.
• The show's frequent reality-shifts required the physical sets to be modular and reconfigurable, a production challenge the 20th Television studio team addressed through parallel set builds and detailed continuity trackin
• Michael Schur had previously worked with Fox/20th Television production on other projects, making The Good Place part of an ongoing creative relationship with the studio.