God Only Knows:Everybody Else Burns.

Somewhere near Manchester, David Lewis (Simon Bird) is a member of a puritanical Christian sect - or cult - and so are other members of his family. Wife Fiona (Kate O'Flynn), daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly), and son Aaron (Harry Connor).

They've destroyed their television, they have apocalypse practices, they call birthdays "birth dates" and nobody is allowed presents or cake, they consider coffee to be such a bad drug that drinking it means being shamed for life, and they believe that women should be fulfilled by making their home their work. 

They also believe you're not to eat bison on a full moon and consider non-believers to be "dead eyed clones blocking out the truth" and they're definitely not on board with dinosaurs. As David says "if there was such a thing as a triceratops it would've come up in Genesis".

That's the premise of Channel 4's recent Everybody Else Burns (created and written by Dillon Mapletoft and Oliver Taylor and directed by Nick Collett) and it's a good premise. Where it falls down is in the execution and, most importantly of all, in the mostly dire standard of jokes. I watched all six episodes and didn't laugh once.

That's a pretty abysmal hit rate but the show wasn't entirely without merit. Some of the storylines became reasonably interesting and involving once the series got going. There's Fiona who has become tired of being the obedient wife and is starting to rebel by setting up her own business. There's Aaron who draws extremely proficient and detailed pictures of his dad boiling in a tar pit and dissolving in an acid bath before progressing on to some highly homoerotic images of Jesus and his disciples.

Most engaging of all is Rachel's story. A talented student she's encouraged by her teacher, Miss Simmons (Lolly Adefope), to apply for university but she struggles to fit studies in with the prayer and recruitment the cult insist she undertakes. On top of that she's met a boy, Joshua (Ali Khan), and she's starting to fall for him.

Josh is a sweet lad who lives in a tower block, walks dogs for a living, loves strategy games, and has been expelled from the cult. Which creates problems for Rachel. Coached by her more worldly wise friend Julia (Soph Galustian), Rachel does what religious people do and manages to contrive a scenario in which she can both go forward with the relationship and stay true to the cult's unreasonable demands.

At least that's what she thinks. Some in the cult, like Elder Samson (Arsher Ali), have quite different ideas (although Elder Abijah (Al Roberts) is more liberal - and fond of Coca-Cola which he's not allowed). So do her parents. While Fiona is doctrinaire, David is completely unreasonable. He's vein, he's jealous, he's greedy, and he's incompetent at almost every task imaginable except weighing parcels at the sorting office he works at with Sid (Kath Hughes).

David believes Armageddon to be imminent but, despite that, he is still desperate for promotion within the sect. A promotion that goes, ultimately, to his neighbour and rival Andrew (Kadiff Kirwan), a man Fiona once dated and still, it seems, has feelings for. Another neighbour, Melissa (Morgana Robinson), is less impressed with David and Fiona telling her how painfully she will die.

As I said, the premise is there but the execution and jokes just don't work. It's not funny when David has a bowl put on his head to have his hair cut, it's not funny when David accidentally smashes the Noguchi coffee table of the man, Joel (Liam Williams), he's supposed to be mentoring, and it's not funny when David and Fiona go to a Japanese restaurant and David seems alarmed that seaweed is on the menu.

It's mildly amusing when Fiona vomits over Andrew's dead wife's memorial tree and when David and Fiona berate Rachel for doing well in her exams. Possibly the funniest scenario in the whole series is when David confesses to infidelity and impure thoughts because he's fantasised over the image of a woman on the packaging of a packet of raisins.

But even that made me smile, not laugh. Religion is a patently ridiculous thing. There's so much to laugh at in it. Everybody Else Burns, sadly, didn't seem able to provide what it promised. Much like religion, in fact.