New TV shows The Good Place and One Mississippi aim to transport viewers to a different place

Two new TV series take us from heavenly pursuits to more earthly concerns and are already both hits with the critics.

Comedian Tig Notaro in One Mississippi. Courtesy OSN.

Two wildly different new comedies transport viewers to very different places. One Mississippi and The Good Place find laughs in some weighty themes as they chew over the meaning of earthly strife and an idyllic afterlife. They both debut on Wednesday (March 1) on OSN First Comedy HD.

The darker of the pair, One Mississippi, is loosely based on the hard-knock life of comedian Tig Notaro. A former band manager and music promoter, her segue to stand-up has made her a darling of fellow comics such as Louis C K, Sarah Silverman, Amy Schumer and Ed Helms.

In fact, C K serves as an executive producer along with Diablo Cody, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Juno, on this critically-acclaimed show, which has already been renewed for a second season by Amazon. The streaming service felt the word "dramedy" – a mix of drama and comedy – was too feeble to describe its traumatic underpinnings and instead dubbed it a family "traumedy".

“In early 2012, I was busier than I’d ever been,” says Notaro. “And then I collapsed. The doctor said my insides were inflamed beyond recognition.

“A week later my mother died. And then I found a lump. After everything that had happened ... I have cancer. As soon as I was diagnosed, everything came over me as funny.”

The series follows her character, Tig, who leaves LA to return to her childhood hometown in Mississippi after her mother’s untimely death. Reeling from this and her own health problems, Tig struggles to find her footing after the loss of the one person who understood her.

In her corner are her older – but not always wiser – brother, Remy, played by Noah Harpster (Transparent), and her emotionally distant stepfather, Bill, played by John Rothman (The Devil Wears Prada).

An unexpected visit from Tig's close friend, Brooke, played by Casey Wilson (Gone Girl), only compounds the reality of how out of place she feels in a world without her mother.

“It’s been fun to watch the show, but it is so heavy, and people cry a lot of times watching it,” says 45-year-old Notaro. “I think my biggest fear was that people were going to tune in ready to just ‘LOL’ ... and it takes these crazy intense turns, where people are like, ‘I was crying in the first five minutes.’”

Too good to be true?

Leaving the earthly vale of tears for a more heavenly destination, The Good Place features the return of perennial TV star Ted Danson (Cheers, CSI) as Michael, a wise afterlife "architect" who welcomes Kristen Bell (House of Lies, Veronica Mars) to eternity in this rumination on what it means to be a "good person".

Bell plays Eleanor Shellstrop, an ordinary woman who finds herself in the afterlife and, thanks to a clerical error, is sent to the “Good Place” instead of the “Bad Place” – which, while she is not evil, is definitely where she belongs given her less-than selfless actions while alive.

While hiding in plain sight from Michael, she grows determined to shed her old ways of living and discover the awesome person within. After all, she has all of eternity to do it.

Life in this fanciful sunshine suburb of spick and span streets, manicured mansions and frozen yogurt shops brings every amenity – a bookstore named All the Books, an Everything Fits clothes store. Unfortunately, Eleanor’s presence in a place she is not meant to be threatens to throw paradise out of balance.

A huge Danson fan, Bell did not hesitate to sign up for the series.

“I heard the pitch, I said ‘let’s go for it’,” says the 36-year-old. “I heard Ted was signing on. I have been obsessed with Ted Danson. In fact, when we first met, we were standing in the lobby of a hotel, and I happened to divulge that I was checked into the hotel under one of his previous character names.”

Danson, 69, was also won over by the show from the start.

“It’s a great out-of-the-box idea,” he says. “It takes place in the afterlife, and I’m the architect of this particular neighbourhood [there]. And I’m her guide. It’s very surprising and very funny.”

Already a critics' favourite, The Good Place has been renewed by NBC for a second season.

• The Good Place starts at 8pm on Wednesday, March 1, with a double-bill premiere. One Mississippi starts at midnight. Both are on OSN First Comedy.