The Great North is a generous, big-hearted family sitcom

If you want a cosy night in, you can’t go past Nick Offerman’s new big-hearted family sitcom.

The Great North’s animation is colourful, and Jenny Slate and Will Forte’s infectious enthusiasm sings out from their voice performances – but that’s not what makes it such an inviting, cosy show.

Well, it’s partly that, but The Great North’s charm comes from its generosity, an ethos which finds the best in people by creating a delightful world that you really hope exists somewhere, and that one day, you’ll get to live in.

Perhaps then it’s ironic that this warm, big-hearted family sitcom, streaming now on Binge*, is set in one of the coldest places on Earth, Alaska. But its setting is key to the quirky specificity of the Tobins, a family led by single dad, patriarch Beef (Nick Offerman).

Beef is a no-nonsense outdoorsman. He wakes up before 5am, goes fishing and comes home to look after his family, which includes oldest son Wolf (Forte), Wolf’s fiance and Californian import Honeybee (Dulce Sloan), middle son Ham (Paul Rust), 16-year-old daughter Judy (Slate) and 10-year-old Moon (Aparna Nancherla).

Even though Beef prefers red-checked flannels, fears change and has a voluminous beard, he’s more than an archetype.

The Great North is streaming now on Binge.

Nick Offerman voices Beef Tobin, the patriarch of the family. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

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He’s compassionate, loves his kids and, when pushed, will share his feelings – like how he’s been pretending for years the kids’ mum was killed by a bear when she ran away with her lover to Pennsylvania. The kids already know.

Beef might finally be ready to move on from his rejection trauma and is at least open to flirting with other women, including Judy’s boss at the photography shop, Alyson (Megan Mullally, who is Offerman’s real-life partner).

The Tobin kids are also really well drawn, literally and literarily. Each one has their own distinct personalities, such as Judy who confers with her imaginary sage friend Alanis Morissette (voiced by the real Morrissette), who appears in sketch form in the Aurora Borealis.

The Great North is the TV equivalent of hygge.

Each episode is a stand-alone story with amusing, silly plots about barter chains, cake baking or curling obsessions, but they also reveal something about the characters and their gentle world.

The series was created by the team behind Bob’s Burgers, so it’s not surprising that it’s hitting such a sweet spot.

The Great North is the TV equivalent of hygge, that Danish lifestyle philosophy of creating comfort and warmth.

It goes down as easily as a mug of hot chocolate and before you know it, you may have binged five episodes without noticing, entranced under its snugly spell.

The Great North is streaming now on Binge

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*Binge is majority owned by News Corp, publisher of news.com.au