One commonality at the bottom of most hegemonic structures is a love of monotony. Folks who hunger for certain forms of normativity also seem to hanker for sameness–so long as it’s the sort of uniformity that suits their existing tastes. Growth (intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and otherwise), alas, only emerges in contexts of richness and complexity. It’s the challenge, the friction, the tension that prompts us to examine our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

I’m not going to dwell on politics on this fine Sunday morning, though it might seem as if I’m trending in that direction. What’s caught my attention these days instead are two shows I’ve been binging with my fiancee: one called Alan Cummings’ Paradise Homes and another called The Restoration Man. The premise of the former is simple: Alan Cummings roams around the globe, visiting folks who think they’ve landed on their version of paradise, at least in architectural terms. And the latter is equally straightforward: a feller by the name of George Clarke visits with folks who have acquired listed (read: historic) properties in Great Britain and chronicles their efforts to turn these distinctive choices into livable homes.

The palette of Paradise Homes is not expansive–one gets the feeling, based on both geography and luxury, that paradise, at least in earthly terms, costs a bundle. What’s delightful about the show, however, is the host’s receptivity to the vagaries of experience. Cummings is a showman, first and foremost, and he’s at his merriest when he’s allowed to poke around these domestic spaces unattended. In some private moments, however, the viewer is allowed to see him wrestling with the choices the homeowners have made, many of which don’t agree with his sensibilities. He can ooh and aah at a gorgeous view with the best of them, but I enjoy watching him most when he’s faced with the minimalism of a couple that purchased a French chateau or built a big, boxy house with great views in the middle of nowhere. It feels to me like the showrunners are sending him in blind, more often than not, and while he can’t personally come around to the aesthetics he meets with, he has enough natural empathy and sensitivity to appreciate that these slices of paradise are just right for the folks who inhabit them. In some ways that feels like an enormous concession, especially in our current historical moment, when so many folks are invested in trying to order the world around their own short-sighted sensibilities.

The Restoration Man has a much broader emotional and ethical range, I’d say, perhaps because the episodes unfold over months or even years. Clarke is an affable host, and he adapts to situations as he finds them, with a wide variety of humane skills and approaches. His abilities are most vividly on display in the second and third episode, as he engages with a) a couple that spent their life savings on a church they hoped to renovate (a hope that could be utterly upended by any number of considerations) and b) a couple that bought a windmill they hope will become a home in which the wife, stricken with cancer, can convalesce.

The former finds George bewildered, as the husband of the couple, Gareth, with virtually no building experience, tries to achieve the dream while his wife cares for their kids and takes on two jobs. It’s a high-risk proposition, as the couple spent their entire nest egg on a property that (if bodies are actually buried underneath it) might not be amenable to any kind of renovation whatsoever. As their story unfolds, George has to watch as the reckless, seemingly clueless Gareth tries to renovate on the cheap, an effort that nearly costs him his marriage along the way as his exasperated, overworked wife becomes more and more isolated. He’s often bemused, but he’s always supportive, and when Gareth manages to pull the rabbit out of the hat and arrives at a solid approximation of the family dream, George is effusive in his praise.

The latter episode is considerably more taxing, as an experienced builder is faced with a renovation of a property with a curious architectural footprint and a number of situational challenges. The builder, Clive, hopes to finish the renovation as quickly as possible, but as the episode unfolds we learn he’s fighting a losing battle–his wife, Jane, suffers several reversals over the course of her treatment, and Clive spends an equal amount of time on the reno site and at home, seeing to her care and well-being. I won’t spoil the episode for you, but I will note that it ends in tears, both for Clive and for George as well, who cannot help but sympathize with a man who so earnestly and wholeheartedly pursued a dream with someone else in mind. Taken together, the two episodes reveal a wide range of responses, with George exasperated and at times troubled by Gareth and more soulfully invested in Clive’s quest.

On the whole it’s a curiously rich diversion, with a wide range of human prospects, from the dogged builder who suffers a heart attack and gets back to work perhaps too quickly, to the dreamers who spent bundles on their properties and have been worn down by the effort to gain planning permission to renovate them (the low-key villains of the series are city planners and planning committees, who are exceedingly precious about these buildings that have been neglected for decades and are falling into ruin, who are content to set hurdle after hurdle before folks who are willing to sink tens of thousand of pounds into these restoration projects). Clarke is an altogether amiable host, though it took me a little time to warm to him. In the early going he’s seemingly focused on preserving the architectural souls of these historic homes, but by the end of his encounter with Clive seems equally intent on seeing to the welfare of the intrepid homeowners.

In a world that’s currently developing programs to determine if a given reader will like a new book based on its similarity to books they’ve already enjoyed, seeing two worldly and capable gents encounter and come to terms with life in all its involved, chaotic, and even nonsensical messiness is invigorating. It’s reassuring to see sophisticated, experienced folks sift through their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs intelligently, candidly, and circumspectly and concede to the realities of these situations rather than fixate on the expectations and ambitions they’d like to impose upon them. We’re still eagerly awaiting the return of the Juniors Edition of the Great British Baking Show, but this is heartening human fare in the interim.