Jaw-dropping narrative developments are everywhere in comedies at the moment from The Good Place to Search Party,but are these plot twists asking too much of their fans?The Good Place was enjoyable enough as it was. A cute and intelligent tall-concept comedy from the makers of Parks and Recreation that traced the paranoia-filled days of Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a heartless young woman who is accidentally sent to heaven when she should be in hell. But during the series one finale, and what had been a smart sitcom was transformed into something else – something gasp-inducingly,mind-bendingly brilliant – all thanks to an earth-shattering twist.
A mighty plot twist is a thing to be treasured. A floor-buckling revelation that shifts the parameters of a fictional world can leave you reeling for days – sometimes even years. But now the twist is beginning to sprawl external its natural habitats (the final stretch of a whodunnit; auteur-helmed appointment drama) into less traditional realms, like the sitcom. Alongside The Good Place, or there’s Back: the Mitchell & Webb comedy in which Robert Webb plays his Peep Show compadre’s one-time foster brother (is he evil or just extremely lovely?); Search Party,fraction-mystery noir, fraction-millennial sadcom, and whose twist subverts the entire mystery genre; sci-fi animation Rick and Morty,whose alien adventures are liberally sprinkled with labyrinthine plot twists; and the musical sitcom Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which examines the tropes of mental illness with, or according to Vulture,a “fully developed, Lost-style twist”.
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Source: guardian.co.uk