ABC Family. TV, US, 40 mins.

At last, a TV show for anyone who thought that Gilmore Girls would be much more palatable if (a) there was a simple unifying reason for everyone in the town of Stars Hollow being so damn quirky all the time and (b) that reason was the impending destruction of all life on Earth.

You’ve read the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction, and learnt of ordinary mainstream programs with science-fictional premises, and wished you could have seen them. Sometimes you’ve tracked them down, only to find out they were just as mundane as the rest of mainstream television.

But what about this one? Do the fantasy elements make it worth watching once, at least, even if it isn’t worth loving?

Cannily, the show begins some time after the initial disaster, by which time armageddon fatigue has begun to set in. Teenagers use it as an excuse for breaking the law, adults as a reason to indulge their every PG-rated whim. The ramifications play out in a number of reasonably funny and imaginative ways. It isn’t a bad show.

However, it may end up falling between two stools. Eureka (A Town Called Eureka in the UK) is probably a bit funnier, has a more engaging cast, and more convincing special effects, while the upcoming Jericho, the story of a small town struggling to survive after the nearest city is destroyed by nuclear bombs, may well leave this cosy catastrophe looking just a little too frivolous.

SF fans should catch at least one episode, but if you have never been tempted to watch Everwood (in the UK, Our New Life in Everwood), say, or Seventh Heaven, or any of those other comfortable drama-soaps, one episode will probably be more than enough.