I love 'The Umbrella Academy'. For me, it's up there with other outstanding sci-fi/fantasy series like 'Stranger Things' and 'The Expanse'. The set-up is very 'X-Men' meets 'Arrested Development' - eccentric genius Reginald Hargreaves assembles group of super-powered young misfits in his mansion to train them to save the world (for some reason, he only acquires 7 of the 43 available such kids). But its style is more like 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' mixed with bit of Tim Burton and Wes Anderson - you know the sort of thing, lots of antiques and lamps and curios and spiral staircases and the like. We're all getting a bit superhero fatigue by now (surely? aren't we?) but there does seem enough quirkiness, originality and heart to this to make it worth viewing. An extremely articulate and beautifully compassionate chimpanzee butler named Pogo for one.

I do want to warn you that the first episode is really quite slow.

A significant event takes place that causes the now-grown-up Umbrella Academy kids to re-assemble at the mansion and there is a great deal of brooding and no little bickering in darkened rooms. A lot of people, for example, have been having a pop at Ellen Page doing her angsty finest, but I actually thought she both suited and played her role as 'Number 7' perfectly.

But yes, like a lot of pilots (inexplicably) it is slow and I can see why quite a few might give up. (On a side-note, why are so many pilots so very slow to warm up? It's weird! Surely you want to throw all the intrigue, excitement, suspense and emotional high-stakes at your audience to grab them in the first 10 minutes of any show?)

Anyway, if you can (and you should) get past the first episode, you will get more and more invested in the incredibly well-drawn key seven characters and their highly complex and layered relationships both with themselves, their dad, their mum (who is an altogether differently interesting proposition in herself), Pogo, the outside world. Added to this, we meet two hitmen (one of whom is Mary J. Blige) who provide action, comic relief and (incredibly) an additional batch of emotional ballast to the whole proceedings.

There are a number of occasions where characters experience both profound bonding and profound loss with one another and I was in tears on more than one occasion. 'The Umbrella Academy' adds virtually nothing to the superhero or time-travel dramas in terms of 'cool skills' or plot, but it is one of the best outworkings of a dysfunctional group of screwed-up siblings trying its jolly best to pull itself back together into some kind of loving family while the world is literally coming to an end.

Oh, and the soundtrack is absolutely outstanding from start to finish.