Passions: Lessons in Chemistry has all the elements of a heartwarming drama

Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott in the Apple TV+ show Lessons in Chemistry. Picture: Apple

Having previously raved about Irish crime drama Kin, filled with awful, if compelling characters, doing awful things to each other, my latest box set recommendation is an entirely different and rather sunnier, hopeful, series.

Step forward Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV+. We watched it over the course of a couple of weeks and it is a delight. Based on the best-selling novel by Bonnie Garmus, it tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant, but socially-awkward chemist whose dreams of pursuing a career in academic research are dashed by the rampant sexism and misogyny of 1950s academia.

Instead, she becomes a TV star in Southern California with her own cooking show, in which she brings her scientific rigour to bear on the recipes she makes and recommends for the largely female audience, desperate to have meaningful and non-patronising content at the birth of the TV age.

Brie Larson plays Zott and she manages to bring both charm and grit to her character. Along the way, she meets the love of her life, Calvin Evans, another brilliant, socially-awkward chemist and the evolution of their relationship is heartwarming.

Before it all sounds like an over-sweet confection, there is tragedy, sexism, racism, childhood trauma, sexual assault and suicide stirred into the plot. And a talking dog.

Apparently in the book, the couple’s dog, called Six-thirty, is a major character, observing and commenting on what is going on. The makers of the TV show confine the magical realism of Six-thirty’s backstory (he’s a military dog who runs away because he doesn’t like bangs) and personal insights to a single episode. Thankfully. This ingredient of the plot doesn’t really work on the screen. It feels a bit like when Grey's Anatomy had the singing episode in 2011 then carried on for the rest of the season as if nothing had happened.

The series also looks like a Norman Rockwell painting, filled with fin tail cars, clapboard houses and more cinched waists than a Ralph Lauren trench coat. And as it’s set in California, it is almost always sunny. Which during winter in Scotland, is just what is needed. Realistic and edgy? Nope. Entertaining and touching? Yes.

Will Slater is a sub editor at The Scotsman