Michael

Michael is the mysterious architect of the neighborhood where Eleanor Shellstrop wakes up, insisting she belongs among the ethically exceptional dead despite mounting evidence of a filing error. Fussy, chipper, and prone to bow ties, he presents himself as a benevolent bureaucrat whose only interest is making the afterlife run smoothly.

Ted Danson plays contentment like a barely-held expression, all warm smiles that flicker into panic the instant the neighborhood misbehaves. The writing gives him an eternity's worth of self-satisfaction to protect, and Danson turns that vanity into comedy so precise it disguises how much is actually going on underneath his cheerful management style.