Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Everyone Else Burns’ On The CW, Where A Family In A Doomsday-Obsessed Religion Have To Still Deal With Day To Day Life

Religion is a touchy subject for comedy, but sitcom writers can’t seem to resist. Many times, what’s being satirized is how people act or react to the tenets of the religion they’re in, not the religion itself. A new British import airing on The CW makes fun of a little bit of both.

EVERYONE ELSE BURNS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A teenage girl is sleeping in her room. Suddenly her dad comes in with a headlight on, yelling that the world is ending.

The Gist: David Lewis (Simon Bird) is waking up his wife Fiona (Kate O’Flynn), daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly) and son Aaron (Harry Connor) to have them sprint away from London, knowing that Doomsday is coming. Only thing is: It’s a drill. He does this every so often to make sure his family is ready, because, as far as the members of The Church of the Divine Rod are concerned, it’s coming pretty soon.

David is so into his daily life at the church, he’s convinced that he’s going to be promoted to a vacant spot as an elder, despite excelling at the package delivery company where he works (something no one does). He purposely broke the TV because it showed people kissing with tongues. Rachel trims his hair with a bowl every day. Aaron was the only one disappointed that the apocalypse didn’t actually come, but he thinks that everyone else in the family is going to burn in hell when it does.

Rachel seems to have the hardest time with being in this family. She goes to school and actually likes learning instead of just praying all the time. Her favorite teacher, Miss Simonds (Lolly Adefope), thinks Rachel should apply to university, and lets her rest when she’s sleepy due to the overnight doomsday drills.

Even David’s motives aren’t entirely pure; he’s completely jealous of his neighbor Andrew (Kadiff Kirwan), who also goes to the same church and seems to be angling his way into the elders’ good graces at his expense.

After church one day, David dispatches Rachel to proselytize and pass out literature, and the only one who seems to be interested in her message is Joshua (Ali Khan), a teen who seemingly lives on his own and walks dogs to make ends meet. They have a good time talking, but then Joshua reveals why he was so interested: He’s a former member of the order who was shunned, which is why he lives on his own. Of course, Rachel runs because she can’t even be seen talking to him, though she’s curious to know what he did to get shunned; the last family that got that treatment were shunned because they became “drug dealers” after opening a coffee shop.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think The Righteous Gemstones, but without nearly as much greed.

Our Take: We wanted Everyone Else Burns to be sharper and funnier, given that the family at the center of it, especially its patriarch, are constantly in fear of an oncoming apocalypse. Religions whose members are that hyper-focused on living a supposed “good life” in case of a Rapture or some other cataclysmic event are ripe for satire. But what creators Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor were likely aiming for with this series is more of a low-key family comedy that just happened to take place inside a doomsday-obsessed family.

It doesn’t help that Bird’s performance as David is largely one-note: Out of touch with the world or even what his family wants, he’s going to be “guided by God” to break TVs and pull the family out on hours-long Doomsday drills because that’s what he believes in. He’s like the extreme version of parents that put their kids on the same diet they’re on; everyone has to be the same as him, whether they want to or not. And we can see that characterization of him start to wear on viewers after a couple of episodes. Heck, it wore us down by the end of the 20-minute first episode.

The rest of the family was more intriguing, from Fiona escaping to the house of neighbor Melissa (Morgana Robinson) because “my family is being unbearable,” to Rachel’s desire to actually learn things and have a social life. Even Aaron taking the family’s doomsday views to an even darker extreme than they do feels more interesting than David’s religious-based narcissism.

Our hope is that Mapletoft and Taylor start leaning on David’s family making their own way in the world, with David powerless to get everyone pulling the same way. Perhaps that will deepen Bird’s performance so that David isn’t so one-note, but that’s yet to be seen. But in shows like this, the world around the main character is generally what ends up carrying the stories and the laughs, which is what we think will happen here.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: David starts another doomsday drill, but no one is buying it this time.

Sleeper Star: Kadiff Kirwan is funny as Andrew, because he seems to be a genuinely good person, and David hates that so much.

Most Pilot-y Line: Joshua to Rachel about university: “Your parents aren’t worried that you’ll OD on ketamine and realize you’re bi?” Rachel in response: “I don’t know what those things are.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. While some aspects of Everyone Else Burns might get repetitive in a hurry, there is more than enough stories revolving around the Lewises trying to live in the world while prepping for Doomsday to make for a pretty funny show with well-rounded characters.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.