Series that take us back to kinder, gentler TV

Since the debut of The Sopranos in 1999, the era of “peak television” is often associated with antiheroes, ethical ambiguity and the erosion of institutions.

Prestige dramas such as The Wire, Breaking Bad and Succession have charted moral collapse and corruption at the heart of modern life, while sprawling hits such as Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead trade in a worldview so relentlessly bleak it could have you reaching for a Xanax.

And let’s be honest, we love them for it.

But at a moment when reality often feels like it’s imitating prestige TV in all the worst ways, audiences may find themselves craving something different. Not necessarily lighter, but more humane.

The good news is that over the last several years, a growing number of shows have dedicated themselves to exploring something quietly radical: kindness.

What follows is a look at several series, available to stream or purchase, united by a shared belief that decency is not weakness, that curiosity itself can be an ethical stance and that kindness is a form of courage. Each offers a welcome antidote to contemporary despair.

An early entry in morally generous television is High Maintenance (four seasons available for purchase on Apple TV). The series follows “The Guy,” a nameless, bicycle-riding cannabis courier who drifts in and out of the lives of his clients across Brooklyn. He functions less as a protagonist than as a connective thread linking intimate and often funny vignettes.

Each episode offers a glimpse into lives that are messy and idiosyncratic. Yet no matter how eccentric its characters are, the series refuses to make them the butt of the joke. Instead, it treats them with warmth, curiosity and care. We are asked to take people (and even, memorably, a dog) as they are.

Acceptance and openness, though second nature to “The Guy” and the show, come across as moral acts, worthy of appreciation and aspiration.

If you’re looking for an artistic expression of acceptance as a moral stance, look no further than Somebody, Somewhere (three seasons on Crave) starring Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller, a comedy/drama following a middle-aged woman who has returned to her small hometown after her sister’s death — though no description of the bare bones plot could prepare you for the emotional richness contained within this show.

The stories are small: finding choir practice space, planning a housewarming and trying a new church, but the emotional beats are carried off with such tenderness and humour you can’t help but be pulled into this show about great big feelings.

More than anything, Somebody, Somewhere is about finding the people who see you clearly and having the courage to love both them and yourself fully and openly. It’s about the families we’re born into and the ones we choose, the value of small acts of care and the courage required to be vulnerable.

Shifting from shows with small stakes to one with, quite possibly, the highest stakes imaginable, we come to Common Side Effects (one season, Stack TV). This animated (for adults) series, produced by Mike Judge (King of the Hill) and Greg Daniels (The Office), is about no less than a cure for every disease and injury. That cure? A weird mushroom found by an even weirder guy named Marshall and his pet turtle, Socrates.

Unlike the previous shows, Common Side Effects features hallmarks of the darker side of peak TV: greed, corruption, conspiracy and high-stakes action, yet its emotional tone is surprisingly gentle.

Marshall might be an oddball and a bit of a slob, but he’s hopeful, open and kind. His refusal to treat the world as already lost forms the emotional core of the series.

Common Side Effects finds additional humanity in a host of unusual and well-drawn characters, including two BFF DEA agents, a clan of rural survivalists and a dim-witted CEO. Ultimately, it suggests that even within systems of exploitation, there is still space for wonder, kindness and curiosity.

If radical kindness with a dose of action sounds appealing, look no further than A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the latest entry in George R. R. Martin’s televised universe.

Where its predecessors, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, trade in moral ambiguity and ruthless ambition, there is little ambiguity in the outlook of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg.

Dunk moves through the same broken world as earlier Martin characters, but with an unfashionable sense of decency. It’s this that inspires Egg — secretly the young prince Aegon Targaryen — to attach himself to the wandering knight.

Together, Dunk and Egg become a community of two. And though the series occasionally mines Dunk’s naiveté for humour, it never laughs at his belief that honesty and honour are worth fighting for.

Where A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms sets decency against a fantasy backdrop, Prime Video’s Jury Duty brings it into the real world. The series reimagines the prank show as a study in patience, kindness and understanding by comically stress testing these values. What emerges is an odd, touching portrait of goodness in action wrapped up in the person of Ronald Gladden, the only non-actor in the made-up jury for the fake trial.

The series wisely avoids making Ronald the butt of the joke, instead asking him to bear witness to an ever-escalating parade of absurdities. It is in how Ronald reacts (and doesn’t react) that Jury Duty finds its thesis: that taking people as they come without judgment or cruelty can’t help but change the world for the better.

While these shows are all different, a common thread runs through them: that the best way to confront the apparent moral emptiness of our times is to refuse to surrender to it. By affirming our humanity and celebrating the virtues of decency, curiosity and community, we become more humane.

And maybe art that celebrates this returns us to something even older and more prestigious than peak TV: a belief that the best way to make the world around us a better place is to be the kindest version of ourselves.

Scott Montgomery is a TV writer and comedian living in Winnipeg and the co-creator of Apple TV’s Camp Snoopy. You may also have seen his work on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Beaverton, Office Movers, Young Drunk Punk, Odd Squad and The Ron James Show.

arts@freepress.mb.ca