If Call the Midwife doesn’t suit, how about (going back some years) the PBS series with Christopher Timothy, “All Creatures Great and Small”? I think the books are better, but if glorious photography of a bygone era in Yorkshire,England, of veterinarians treating animals, and the semi-comical relationships between the humans doesn’t just fill the bill, don’t know what does!
Damn, I was just going to tell you to go roll around in some “All Creatures Great and Small”. (It can be sad sometimes, obviously - animals, you know. But mostly it’s just very cozy.)
Watch “Community”, but stop two or three seasons before the end. Because it really starts to suck.
Somebody else mentioned “Foyle’s War”, which is very solid (murder mysteries, but likeable characters Doing Their Bit).
How about Supernatural? While it can certainly be very dark, the show is punctuated with humor, it has plenty of ‘good’ guys, and sometimes has entire episodes that are straight-up comedy.
I think you didn’t follow my double negative.
The only apparent non-assholes on Archer are people we know next to nothing about. Such as Bret. (Although he’s kind of an asshole for always putting himself in the path of bullets.)
The Mindy Project
Blacklist: ostensibly it’s a thriller/crime drama but James Spader being sarcastic is basically the best.
CW’s The 100: it’s getting darker and MAYBE going Battlestar Galactica (like a teeny tiny bit), but it’s still on the CW after all
Entourage on HBO
Father Ted makes me happy. It’s from the 1990s.
Spaced, Black Books, Adventures of Pete and Pete and IT Crowd are all my happy shows.
I third The West Wing and Foyle’s War. Veronica Mars!
Rectify is a throat slitter but easily best show on now.
Entourage is full of nothing but self-centered assholes.
Except that
the actor who played the title role in that died with a day of the end of filming the third series/season. Which is not to say that the show is depressing; it really is hilarious. But Dermot Morgan’s death and the timing of it is a downer.
Yeah…it’s set in L.A. But it’s played for laughs, not for some deep, dark insight into the human condition. I always found the show hilarious with Jeremy Piven stealing almost every scene.
I’ve only seen three episodes and I fear it may get tiresome after a while, but Bad Teacher on CBS is pretty good and definitely not heavy.