What is The Good Place's IQ Score?

The Good Place has an IQ Score of 129/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient framework, placing it in the Competent tier. The score breaks down to 38/50 Cognitive Stimulation, 23/50 Educational Value, and 36/50 Craft & Quality.

Is The Good Place educational?

The Good Place is low on educational value, 23/50 on TVI's rubric. Watch for entertainment, not for learning.

How does TV Intelligentsia calculate IQ Score?

TV Intelligentsia's current published formula is round((Cognitive Stimulation × 0.4 + Educational Value × 0.35 + Craft & Quality × 0.25) × 4), scoring titles from 0 to 200 across five tiers. TVI publishes a three-dimension breakdown only when those values reproduce the displayed composite. The framework is published at tvintelligentsia.com/methodology/.

The Good Place IQ Score 129/200

The Good Place has an IQ Score of 129/200 on TV Intelligentsia's Intelligence Quotient rubric, placing it in the Competent tier.

By Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH·Updated 2026-08-19·Methodology

comedyphilosophical

129/ 200

Competent

Engages without demanding much, watchable and reasonably crafted

Score Breakdown

Cognitive Stimulation/50

Educational Value/50

Craft & Quality/50

IQ = round((Cognitive × 0.4 + Educational × 0.35 + Craft × 0.25) × 4) · How we score →

What these dimensions mean

Cognitive Stimulation: observable narrative complexity, conceptual density, ambiguity, inference, and sustained intellectual demands in the work.
Educational Value: the density and integration of substantive academic, historical, scientific, cultural, ethical, or practical information in the work.
Craft & Quality: production excellence in service of the work, its direction, writing, performance, and aesthetic intent.

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The Verdict

Best forComedy viewers happy to meet Kant and Scanlon between jokes about frozen yogurt

Skip ifYou want the philosophy rigorous; the ethics stay introductory while twists carry the load

Use it asA painless on-ramp to moral philosophy and a running argument about what we owe each other

Why you should trust this score

Scored under Jordan Robinson, MD, MPH

Physician and founding editor. Maintains the adult catalog against the published rubric and reviews the rubric application.

Methodology

Published rubric, v1.3.1

Formula

round((C × 0.40 + E × 0.35 + Q × 0.25) × 4)

Database scale

2,605 titles, version-controlled

How we stay independent. Editorial scores are not for sale. TVI may take on paid advisory or research work, but no commercial relationship buys coverage, advance access to scores, favorable treatment, or a change to a published finding. We pay for our own streaming subscriptions, and no reviewer sees sponsor data or affiliate revenue tied to a score. More about how we work →

The TVI Take

Builds philosophical comedy around afterlife ethics, where characters work through moral philosophy through escalating narrative twists.

People & Production Michael Schur · Fremulon · NBC 24 connections