Review: ‘Everyone Else Burns’ is a dysfunctional family comedy you can believe in
As we move farther into the fall non-season, the CW continues its policy of importing programs, and though I do not have the attendance figures, the creative results, coming mostly from Canada, have been on the whole good. Included on its schedule, which once favored superheroes and the supernatural, are family sitcoms; a School of Jessica Fletcher detective show with Lea Thompson; a “Virgin River” cousin; and a top-notch international eco-thriller.
There is something to be said, I guess, for picking and choosing from available items, like stocking the shelves of a specialty market, rather than having to cook things up oneself — though, of course we encourage domestic production wherever possible, and as soon as possible. (Emphasizing its own creative participation, the network recently announced two new Canadian-made series for 2024, “Wild Cards” and “Sight Unseen,” which it characterizes as co-productions, and which will air north and south of the 49th parallel.)
Three shows, ‘Son of a Critch,’ ‘Children Ruin Everything’ and ‘Run the Burbs,’ join the CW’s Monday lineup this summer.
Adding a new flavor to the mix is the British series “Everyone Else Burns,” which premieres Thursday, joining three other comedies being moved from Monday as if it to capture the mojo of NBC’s powerhouse “Must See TV” block. From the title on down, it is not the sort of thing one expects from American broadcast television, a dysfunctional family comedy set within an apocalyptic Christian sect. 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; witness the sunnier domestic variants of “The Office” or “Ghosts” (the original version of which will run this fall on CBS, following reruns of the — very good — knockoff).
There are certainly some who will give wide berth to any show that mocks religious puritanism and fundamentalism, if they watch television at all, and it’s true that you don’t have to look far to find real-world groups who believe that nonbelievers will literally burn in hell. But although there are occasional references to a Bible verse or figure, usually in the service of a joke, the show has little to do with faith, as such, and nothing to do with mainstream Christianity. Created by Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor, it has more to do with power structures and systems of rules and how one submits to or resists them, which might easily apply to high school or corporations or the army, and any scenario in which people who unthinkingly follow orders start to think for themselves.
Simon Bird plays David, waiting for the end of the world, whose Manchester family belongs to a church called the Order of the Divine Rod. A mediocre sort of person who fancies himself a great one, David is self-obsessed, beset by pride and envy and largely insensitive to the family over which he claims God-given patriarchal dominion. His thwarted ambition is to become an elder of the Order, although his one talent, which is in fact something of a superpower, is sorting mail and packages — his part-time job and the one place where he is authentically cherished, but which he regards with disdain. He wears his bowl haircut like a challenge to worldliness, modernity and not looking ridiculous.
A fanatic even within the context of his church, David sees no reason why things in his family shouldn’t continue as they always have; the only change he desires is to rise higher in the Order, but given the change happening around him, he may be required to bend a little, even as he strains to preserve the appearance of not bending at all. Teenage daughter Rachel (a touching Amy James-Kelly) wants to go to university, to her parents’ dismay. (“Straight A’s, five out of five for effort, where did we go wrong?”) Wife Fiona (Kate O’Flynn, exhausted) has discovered she has a head for business, and would also like to watch some television, as David has destroyed theirs and refuses to replace it; this leads to a friendship with very secular neighbor Melissa (Morgana Robinson).
Melissa: “I’ve noticed that you and your husband sleep in two separate single beds.”
Fiona: “David likes to push them together on special occasions, but the table makes that difficult.”
“So why’d you put the table there then?”
“I just told you.”
Young son Aaron (a singular Harry Connor) is fully invested in what he hopes is an imminent apocalypse. “Finally,” he says when his father, on what turns out to be a “practice run,” tells him, “Pack your things, Aaron, the end time is here.” He’s a more intense, self-possessed knockoff of David, whom he draws dissolving in an acid bath, being ripped apart by wild animals or burning in hell for his “misdeed.” (“You raised my hopes only to dash them.”) “Worldly kids at school make fun of me,” he tells Joel (Liam Williams), whom David has been sent, complaining, to counsel. “But in the afterlife I get to watch them burn through my own special window ... It’ll be my own personal paradise, Joel. There will be a window.”
Surrounding the family and variously complicating things are Joshua (Ali Khan), a former (and therefore “excluded”) Order member whom Rachel meets in the course of mandatory proselytizing, and with whom she ventures a friendship; Julia (Soph Galustian), a rebel girl within the sect; Rachel’s teacher Miss Simmonds (Lolly Adefope, who plays Kitty in the U.K. “Ghosts”); Sid (Kath Hughes), David’s admiring boss; Elder Abijah (Al Roberts), aiming to be the hip priest (“The order’s about having fun too”) and continually shot down by his superior, Elder Samson (Arsher Ali); and Andrew (Kadiff Kirwan), bursting with vitality, an Order member with whom David is angrily competitive, Aaron has a friendlier relationship with and Fiona watches doing his workout.
Naturally, we hope for the end of the last remaining strike and for the literal and metaphorical city to get back to work. I’m a patriot to that degree. In the meantime, I will enjoy these six borrowed episodes to the utmost, and suggest that you do too.
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