Religion and race are two topics often difficult to handle with grace on TV, and contemporary politics have made it all the more difficult for certain demographic groups to find their rightful place on-screen. Remember the infamous episode of “Homeland” that featured a scene with Arabic graffiti reading “Homeland is racist” because the show’s producers have no knowledge of Arabic? We certainly do. That episode was one in a long-running and intense public discourse about how Arab, Middle Eastern, and / or Muslim characters are treated in American TV shows. Here’s one data point for you: Jack Shaheen’s documentary “Reel Bad Arabs” surveys Arab characters in thousands of films from 1896 to 2000 and found a grand total of twelve characters who portrayed positively.

And then there’s the show about heaven and hell that’s not about religion at all. NBC’s “The Good Place” is not about religion, or theology, or even the afterlife, writes Vox, but rather about ethics, moral evolution, and the big questions of the here and now. Selfish Eleanor wakes up after her untimely death to find that she’s been placed in what she assumes is the Good Place along with a philanthropist, a “sweet but dumb bro,” and a moral philosophy professor. When they eventually discover that they’re actually in the Bad Place, the show’s questions of morality and goodness kick in. “The Good Place” may dabble in the weighty questions of ethics but it plays theology for laughs. The closest the show gets to God is the Judge, “A frazzled, burrito-gobbling bureaucrat whose days are dictated by her lunch breaks.”