It is called “storytelling” and it is an activity in every known culture, frequently to convey morals or allegorical lessons but also frequently for entertainment and expression of creativity. Which is not to say that all stories hav to involve “cops, spies, wars, or the less bloody fare of scheming royals or richies,” and in fact many do not. But to decry all of drama and fiction is eschewing one of the unique features of human society.
I cannot think of topics more boring and/or manufactured to watch. While I enjoy watching a baseball game live, watching it on television is really just viewing a continuous stream of commercials punctuated by an occasional pitch and swing. Cooking and travel shows are frequently more scripted and affected than actual fiction (excepting Julia Child, of course), and when you combine them together a la the late Tony Bourdain’s CNN show that pretended to present a slice of foreign life and cuisine, you get a soul-destroying fabulation which makes viewers think they understand the culture being presented when it represents nothing other than what a writers’ room and a group of producers thought would get the most eyes on screens.
Not everything might be to your taste, but here are recommendations from my list. Some of them I haven’t watched in a while so my memory might not be perfect regarding the presence of murder, mayhem, or rape:
HBO shows:
The Larry Sanders Show
(Also Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling)
Silicon Valley is superb, but I must warn you it’s not about good people. It’s more like a Dickensian satire of the worst kind of people in tech business. But the storytelling is IMO brilliant. It felt genuinely suspenseful to me despite being about nothing more than a guy trying to launch a tech startup. Also very raunchy!
I just remember I started a thread similar to this one asking for shows that are about good people. I was tired of all the cynical takes. That’s when I was recommended Ted Lasso. I understand that they aren’t mutually exclusive, I just got mixed up.
Derry Girls - I was willing to give a longer shot, but my wife didn’t care for it. Fleabag - similar, but basically thought a lot of unpleasantness in it.
Don’t have HBO, but could see if the library carries any of them. Meaning to try Hulu.
I guess I’ll withhold any comments on the modding…
I used to love Doc Martin, but the final season is available now, and I find I’m just not interested. It’s the same old tropes, same old jokes, same old characters doing the same old things, I just found myself getting bored.
For a similar milieu but much cleaner, if you can find Halt And Catch Fire, it’s an amazing show that follows the set of characters through various eras of the computer/internet age as they grow and change and tackle big issues. It’s one of my favorite shows, excellently cast, written and acted. A gem.
My personal “feel good” clean and wholesome show is Heartland, available free through PlutoTV. Sixteen seasons so it’s a looooong binge but it’s full of horses and kind people learning and being kind to each other as they grow and change. If you like a rural setting and especially if you’re horsey, this is the one.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo does have murder cases, but the real story is about Woo, an autistic woman who has become an attorney. Extremely charming and with some powerful emotional moments.
I watched the newest version of All Creatures Great and Small on the PBS website. It was free, but the episodes don’t stay up long. A new season begins very soon.