If you are a Mike Schur fan hoping that “The Good Place” will one day crossover with another series in the Schurverse, you’re going to be waiting for a long time because the series’ creator says that will “never happen.”
“I want to make this very clear, that will never happen — end of story,” Schur told reporters during the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour Tuesday, following the panel for his new NBC comedy “Abby’s.” “I’m like literally drawing a shower curtain between the universe and that idea.”
When TheWrap asked Schur — who has been one of the creative minds behind other NBC comedies like “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office” — if fans should then ignore those previous “Parks and Rec” references that have popped up in the Kristen Bell after-life comedy, including the cameo Lil’ Sebastian made, he said that those are just for kicks.
“Part of the fun of doing the show has been just for literally no reason to drop ‘Parks and Rec’ Easter eggs into ‘The Good Place,’” Schur told TheWrap. “And we’ve done it like, I don’t know, a dozen times. And that was a total coincidence, that was for an episode of ‘The Good Place’ where all the animals were walking around. We decided just for old times’ sake to get Li’l Sebastian back.”
“And then D’Arcy [Carden, who plays Janet] took that photo and said, ‘Can I post this?” Schur continued. “And one of our producers said, ‘If she posts that, it will break the internet.’ And I was like, ‘Ah, go ahead, who cares.’ So I like the idea that Li’l Sebastian is floating around in heaven somewhere and being attended to by Janet, that’s a nice thought to have. But it’s not a crossover.”
Here’s the photo in question:
hi. pic.twitter.com/uX52o1vHuo
— D'Arcy Carden (@DarcyCarden) November 9, 2018
As for Season 4 of “The Good Place,” which aired its third season finale last week, Schur says, “We just started with the writers, we’re like two weeks in and just panicking. Just white-hot panic.”
The showrunner says the series does plan to mix things up yet again for its next batch of episodes, as it has done in each previous season with a new cliffhanger or reboot-centric twist, this time being the fact Chidi (William Jackson Harper) has had his memory wiped.
“Yeah, in a way we are, by design, but you know, there are some key differences,” Schur said. “Like, in this case only one person won’t remember what’s going on and there’s a lot of different power dynamics and stuff. So the idea is always to like change everything and somehow still do the same show that people have been watching, so hopefully, that’s what happens.
“Abby’s” premieres March 28 at 9:30/8:30c on NBC.