British-American dramedy 'You, Me and the Apocalypse' premieres on NBC

The president has just gone on live TV to make an announcement: a giant comet is on a collision course with Earth and everyone on the planet has 34 days left to live.

This is the premise ofNBC’s “You, Me and the Apocalypse,” which follows the lives of several seemingly unconnected individuals during their final days on earth. The miniseries, a joint British-American venture that aired in the U.K. last fall, has arrived stateside with relatively little fanfare. That’s a shame, because the comedy-drama series, which premiered on NBC on Jan. 28, is a charmingly odd bit of television that deserves a following.

Part of what makes “You, Me and the Apocalypse” such an unusual find is that it hardly even feels like a television show. Much of that has to do with the show’s scope, which is extraordinarily large for a network comedy and feels much more suited to film. So far, the series has been set in three countries on two different continents — and all this during the first two episodes alone.

“You, Me and the Apocalypse” opens in a bunker in Slough, England minutes before the world’s end. The 15 people inside it appear to be slightly — or very — deranged, likely a result of the presumably traumatic events following the apocalyptic announcement. The newscaster on the television signs off as the comet comes hurtling toward Earth; the planet is seconds away from utter destruction — and cue flashback! The action suddenly swings back to 34 days earlier, mere hours before the president’s earth-shattering announcement (pun intended). We are introduced to one of the bunker's inhabitants, Jamie (Mathew Baynton), an unimportant banker from Slough living a mundane and obsessively regulated life. We soon learn that this sad state of affairs has characterized Jamie’s existence ever since his wife’s unexplained disappearance seven years earlier. He can’t move on, much to the concern of both his mother (Pauline Quirke) and housemate (Joel Fry).

“You, Me and the Apocalypse” soon pivots away from Jamie so that we can be introduced, one by one, to the other bunker occupants. We then meet Sister Celine (Gaia Scodellaro), a young nun in rural Italy who craves more adventure than her life in the convent allows for. She soon finds herself in Rome as the newly hired assistant of a heavy-smoking, cynical Vatican priest Father Jude Sutton (Rob Lowe).Lowe seems to relish this delightfully absurd role, performing his lines with characteristic flair and charm.

Meanwhile, stateside, the action follows Rhonda (Jenna Fischer), a former librarian who has found herself in a federal prison, serving time for a crime her son committed. Fischer, best known for her role as Pam Beesly on “The Office” (2005-2013), does solid work as an ordinary woman thrust into an increasingly bizarre set of circumstances. Though her character is actually quite similar to Pam, her storyline is not, making Fischer’s part feel both strikingly familiar and pleasantly surprising.

As the world reacts to news of the planet’s impending doom and characters embark on various quests, it slowly becomes clear that these bunker-dwelling strangers are actually connected in the most unexpected ways. With only 10 episodes in the miniseries and a long way to go before everyone ends up in the same place, "You, Me and the Apocalypse" needs the plotlines to be as cleverly constructed and tightly written as they have been in these first two episodes if it is to be deemed a success.

Much of the quirky, quasi-absurdist humor on “You, Me and the Apocalypse” feels akin to that of other NBC comedies — think “Parks and Recreation” (2009-2015), “Community" (2009-2015) or “The Office." These are small-scale shows set in unexciting towns that follow the lives of exceptionally unexceptional people. “You, Me and the Apocalypse” takes this kind of humor and transfers it to big, grand storylines about people in the most remarkable situations. This tonal mishmash actually works quite well, though it is hard to take anything that happens particularly seriously, even the more solemn, dramatic moments (this is a comedy-drama after all). This unbelievability, however, seems to be exactly what the show is going for. 

The first two episodes of “You, Me and the Apocalypse” leave it poised for success — critically, at least, if not commercially. Even if the promise of a quality hour of television is not enough to encourage folks to tune in, “You, Me and the Apocalypse” has something no other television program can boast: a trash-talking Rob Lowe in priest robes. That sight, surely, is not one to be missed.