Everyone Else Burns

A smart, well-made family sitcom that strikes an effective balance of prickly dysfunction and coming-of-age poignancy shouldn’t be such a rare thing on broadcast TV. But it is. The CW’s desperation has yielded that rarest of gifts: a network comedy that’s actually worth watching.

Easily the fall’s best original scripted series.

There is a certain sort of downbeat, naturalistic, kitchen-sink comedy that the British do well and whose tone no American equivalent has ever quite captured, or perhaps tried to. .... I will enjoy these six borrowed episodes to the utmost, and suggest that you do too.

It wouldn't work half as well without Bird's manic energy as David. .... It is sharply, wittily written too. OK, it's not Father Ted, but I haven't seen religion mocked as warmly as this for years. It may evoke complaints from some quarters, but there is no nastiness.

David's unwitting hypocrisy and unshakeable selfishness (pushing a mother and her sick baby behind him in the Elders' advice queue) are the butt of the jokes; the extremity and perversion of Christianity by the Order is what they have in their sights. Beyond that, it's simply very, very funny, all the way.

It might not set the world on fire, but Everyone Else Burns – which takes on organised religion with light mockery rather than savage skewering – has plenty of warmth.

Every line has a comic payoff and every character, from the leads down to the supporting players, is well-written.

While some aspects of Everyone Else Burns might get repetitive in a hurry, there is more than enough stories revolving around the Lewises trying to live in the world while prepping for Doomsday to make for a pretty funny show with well-rounded characters.

Everyone Else Burns has hints of a Schitt’s Creek level of upside in which early broad punchlines built around a single easy joke and a central family give way to more of a community portrait and to a tone with more heart. Already I’ve got some affection for the characters played by Robinson, Al Roberts as a more progressive elder in the church and, especially, Lolly Adefope as a teacher who sees and nurtures Rachel’s potential.

Fundamentalism is a tricky theme, but watching ahead past the double episode opener, the problem is that Everyone Else Burns just isn’t funny enough. It aims for the ambience of an old-school sitcom but is more of an intermittently amusing light drama.