One of the fall’s biggest network hits is not a diverting legal, medical, or crime procedural. It’s not a shiny reality contest whose panel of judges includes at least one Brit, it’s not an escapist laugh-riot sitcom about boyish dads and their darn wives. It is not set in Chicago, where the police, firefighters, and doctors are all perfectly heroic.

So what exactly is “This Is Us’’? Yes, it fits into that vague, somewhat rare category known as “family drama,’’ which can mean anything from the wholesome “Little House on the Prairie’’ to the darker, death-obsessed “Six Feet Under.’’

But, very much unlike most family dramas of late — think “Parenthood’’ or “Friday Night Lights’’ — it’s doing really, really well in the ratings. The NBC series quickly stood out from the deluge of “Peak TV’’ shows after its September premiere, with a large viewership hovering around 9 million and a significant jump — around 60 percent — when the seven-day DVR numbers get added in. It’s now the top new show with the desirable 18-49 age group, and NBC has given it a full season order. That kind of consistent momentum is usually attached to a button-pushing Shonda Rhimes show.

Part of the unusual appeal is undoubtedly the show’s trick-filled approach to narrative. “This Is Us’’ gives us information about the Pearson family — three same-aged siblings, one adopted and black, as well as the parents — in small reveals that can be thrilling and generate e-watercooler buzz. The first episode was calculated to surprise us with the fact that all the characters are related, and since then significant specifics have been delivered bit by bit. The reveals are not plot points in the present tense that surprise the characters, so much as disclosures to the viewers from the family’s past — they’re creator and writer Dan Fogelman winking at us playfully, pulling us slowly into the puzzle that is the Pearsons. It reminds me of the approach taken by “Lost,’’ also celebrated for its narrative play and the interaction between the past and the present.

The time jumps on “This Is Us,’’ too, are entertaining for viewers, just as they were on “Lost,’’ as they help the show move less predictably forward. They’re not just flashbacks in service of the present tense; they’re their own unfolding stories. We can see that clearly as we learn more and more about the roots of the conflict between brothers Kevin (Justin Hartley) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) with each new episode, how favoritism and racial difference pitted them against each other from the start. The story of the relationship between the parents — Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) — takes place entirely in the past, and will stay there, since we know Jack has died. Did the couple split before he died? Why did Rebecca marry Jack’s best friend? The characters know, it’s old news to them; but we’re waiting to find out.

Of course, the warmth and compassion of “This Is Us’’ may well be speaking loudly to people suffering from election burnout. The timing of the show is just right for viewers in need of a dose of sugar — network sugar, to be sure, marked by obviousness and sentimentality, but nonetheless sweet. The presidential race was bitter, and the news since then has been strange and uncertain. The Pearson family offers a balm; each of them is sympathetic, none is another TV antihero trying to make us question our moral bearings. Actor Kevin’s fragile ego is hard to get inside, but with each episode he looks less like an entitled brat and more like a child late to maturity.

No, the Pearsons are not easy-viewing blissful ideals; if they’re not antiheroes, they’re not superheroes either. They have all-consuming and difficult issues, from the weight concerns of daughter Kate (Chrissy Metz) to Rebecca’s big secret. Randall’s lifelong identity struggles as a black person in an all-white world are in play in a big way, with his birth father now in the picture. Like the mawkish Simon and Garfunkel-esque soundtrack, they’re all pretty melancholy. Only eight episodes in, their lives have already been touched by death and illness, with the loss of one of the triplets, the unexplained death of Jack, and the cancer of Randall’s father, William, so beautifully played by Ron Cephas Jones.

The show is, ultimately, about people trying to heal from deep wounds. That was why Kevin handed the Pilgrim Rick hat to Miguel at the end of the Thanksgiving episode; somewhere inside his pretty, narcissistic blond head, he wants to reconcile, to recover from his relentless grief for his father.

That urge to heal is the spark inside “This Is Us,’’ the optimistic message that is drawing so many viewers in. The show offers a vision of family that takes into account the profound differences between the family members, including race, as well as the depth of their individual problems, but that keeps them together anyway. They are interconnected, whether they like it or not. Our country, alas, is in the same place, divided and yet stuck with one another. For many of the show’s fans, “This Is Us’’ is us.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.