I’ll second Sleepy Hollow. The human characters are pretty decent–it’s the demons & horsemen of the Apocalypse you need to watch out for. The show’s done for the season (only 13 episodes) & not on Netflix. Still, really good & funny.
SH flashes back to the American Revolution–in fact, it inspired me to read up on the period. (It’s fantasy but the writers know their history.) Alas, the inaccuracies in TUR(backwards)N give me hives; why change history only to make the story duller? A few of the actors really throw themselves into their parts, though…
…no, definitely not the Americans, that is the exact opposite of what you are looking for. And not the Blacklist: which is a relentlessly depressing programme with a high body count and with a serial killer (although they act like he isn’t) for a protagonist. And I haven’t seen Fargo: but if the movie is anything to go by I doubt it would fit the bill either.
There are a whole lot of programmes that I call “old school.” Think Magnum PI, Simon and Simon, that era of programming where sometimes there are story arcs, but they aren’t that important. And at the end of each episode everything basically resets, the good guys are good and the bad guys are undoubtedly bad. Leverage is an old school programme. So is Castle, so is something like Bones, as is the Mentalist most (but not all) of the time.
Orphan Black isn’t old school: but it isn’t relentlessly depressing. At the end of each episode you aren’t grimacing because they’ve killed another of your favourite characters but you are cheering because of how clever its been. And it has a female protagonist and a strong one at that: so the series lacks the hints of misogyny that programmes like Supernatural have.
Doctor Who has been mentioned and you might like it. The current show runner is Stephen Moffatt: and as a show runner he loves his characters so much he can’t bear to kill them off. If you end up liking Who, then check out Sherlock and Jekyll.
The guy wants a show that leaves one with happy thoughts, without terrible assholes and you advise *Jekyll *? What the hell’s the matter with you ?
Firefly’s an old one by goldfish standards, but it’s fun, it’s chipper, it’s lovable. Veronica Mars, same thing. Another oldie brimming with relentless optimism that hits you right in the feels once in a while : The West Wing. Though I guess it’s actually a pretty fucking depressing show when you’re aware of how American politics really go :).
As for more recent stuff : *Weeds *and Orange Is The New Black, both dramedies, are hilarious albeit not entirely devoid of douchenozzles. *Californication *is fun as well. Generation Kill was quite a bit darker (it’s about, y’know, the war in Iraq in all it’s all-encompassing violent stupidity) but it’s really gripping television, and often funny as hell too.
My SO was a big fan of Raising Hope, is currently marathoning Shameless and never misses Parks & Recreations. Can’t say they work for me, but they might for you.
None of the good guys die. Plenty are slated for death: but everyone makes it from memory. I was sure the lesbian private investigators were going to going to die, but they didn’t. The good guys won, the bad guys didn’t, and lets pretend the last 30 seconds never happened.
I agree with the OP. I prefer my entertainment to not leave me miserable after, or afraid to watch. When Eureka, then Chuck, then Burn Notice, then Psych, and now Warehouse 13 all ended, a fair chunk of my uplifting fun adventure shows were not replaced with an equivalent, and unless you like dark and gritty and serious and miserable, it’s a wasteland now.
Here’s what I watch now:
Castle
White Collar
Arrow
Agents of SHIELD
Brooklyn Nine Nine
Continuum
Da Vinci’s Demons
Doctor Who
Drop Dead Diva (not really recommended unless you can deal with an eye-rollingly ridiculous lawyer show)
Franklin and Bash
Suits (the serious and better written twin to the above)
Elementary
The Mentalist
Murdoch Mysteries (highly recommended Canadian period detective show)
New Girl
Orange Is The New Black
Orphan Black
Sleepy Hollow
Turn
UK Shows that may not be available to you yet:
Big Fat Quiz of the Year
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
Bletchley Circle
Call The Midwife
Crimson Field
Death In Paradise
Doc Martin
Downton Abbey
Father Brown
Indian Doctor
Jonathan Creek
Law and Order UK
Hustle
The Musketeers (quite a new show, but absolutely wonderful, couldn’t suit me any more perfectly)
QI
The Trip
World’s Most Dangerous Roads
It’s refreshing to be taken into a world where everything needs to be “proper”, and the few violence and sexytime scenes are implied rather than graphic.
What I like best is that the characters are honest with each other - secrets are kept for only a few episodes before being brought to light, unlike “Sons of Anarchy” for instance where you’re like “JUST TELL THEM WTF IS GOING ON ALREADY!”
I find myself smiling at some point during every episode.
I find Leverage much more watchable than Burn Notice. Nate’s scheme team may all be criminals, but they’re much more pleasant company than Weston’s crew. Admittedly that’s only because Mike screws up the curve for Miami.
One note on Parks and Recreation - It took a little while to find its legs. The first season isn’t bad, but it doesn’t get really good until after that, so bear with it.
Call the Midwife has been mentioned twice (and seasons 1-2 are available on Netflix DVD and streaming; I think PBS.org is currently streaming season 3), and its overall tone is upbeat, but I find it makes me cry a lot. It’s glossed up the time period and setting a bit, but there’s still a lot of poverty, suffering, illness, and death.
Nowhere near wrist-slitting level, but if you’re looking for a show that doesn’t involve much sadness at all, this isn’t it.
The first time I tried Sunny, I was all set to hate it, but they do such a good job at being totally absurd that I ended up loving it and binging on the previous seasons to catch up. I really only ended up watching it because it was paired with The League which I started watching at the beginning, and which is just as absurd, but still about “assholes treating each other like assholes”.
P.S. You could also try Sirens on USA. They’re less “assholes treating each other like assholes” than the other two.
