Home

Warm, lovely, and studded with quietly brilliant jokes, this British import about a Syrian refugee making a new home in Dorking, England is a welcome surprise. Written by Rufus Jones, who also stars as bumbling but sweet Peter, Home is the rarest of TV animals -- a genuinely funny show that derives its humor from lovable characters (along with potshots at English life). Sami, Peter, John, and Katy emerge immediately as very particular people, not types, with the outlines of their lives sketched in Home's first episode. Peter, who described himself in the dating profile that attracted Katy to him as an "English rose in need of a tender gardener," is buck wild over Katy. He's moved into the house she shares with adolescent son John, who views Peter as an interloper first and an imbecile second. Katy isn't sure her son is totally wrong, though she likes Peter enough to take a chance.

Their lives are upended by the arrival of Sami, who's fled his life and school teaching job in civil war-torn Syria, as well as being separated from his wife and son. He's quickly accepted (remarkably so from an American point of view) as a refugee, and his attempts to fit himself into daily English life are a rich source of Home's comedy, like in one scene in which Sami tries to prove to Dorking's police force that he's a local by taking a big spoonful of Marmite -- which gives him away immediately as a newbie. Peter is suspicious of Sami; he could be a terrorist, or have Ebola. But as Sami worms his way into Peter's heart, just as this show will with viewers who appreciate cozy, character-driven shows that don't punch down.