The jokes come thick and fast, and though Rachel may be having a pretty miserable time, the viewer won’t.

Easily the fall’s best original scripted series.

It wouldn't work half as well without Bird's manic energy as David. .... It is sharply, wittily written too. OK, it's not Father Ted, but I haven't seen religion mocked as warmly as this for years. It may evoke complaints from some quarters, but there is no nastiness.

It might not set the world on fire, but Everyone Else Burns – which takes on organised religion with light mockery rather than savage skewering – has plenty of warmth.

David's unwitting hypocrisy and unshakeable selfishness (pushing a mother and her sick baby behind him in the Elders' advice queue) are the butt of the jokes; the extremity and perversion of Christianity by the Order is what they have in their sights. Beyond that, it's simply very, very funny, all the way.

Everyone Else Burns has hints of a Schitt’s Creek level of upside in which early broad punchlines built around a single easy joke and a central family give way to more of a community portrait and to a tone with more heart. Already I’ve got some affection for the characters played by Robinson, Al Roberts as a more progressive elder in the church and, especially, Lolly Adefope as a teacher who sees and nurtures Rachel’s potential.

A few unresolved plot threads and a lack of comeuppance for deserving characters suggest that the writers are holding out for a second season, but it's hard not to wish for some resolution when such a thing is no guarantee. It makes for a sitcom that is enjoyable enough in the moment but all too easy to shrug off, which is not what you'd expect from a premise with potential to be so provocative.