It’s fitting that Amazon’s “Modern Love,” which debuts Friday and draws its stories from the New York Times column of the same name, puts forward the best version of itself in the very beginning. No one who has ever dated needs reminding that first impressions can be misleading, but the solid narrative skills and excellent casting on display in the premiere episode help prop up the wispier aspects of this inconsistent but sometimes charming anthology series.

In that episode, Cristin Milioti plays a single New Yorker whose relationship with her doorman (the wonderful Laurentiu Possa ) becomes the unexpected and occasionally irksome cornerstone of her life. This unlikely duo’s saga — which, like a number of other installments, doesn’t hinge on romantic love — is given lyrical, wise treatment by the writer, director and executive producer John Carney (“Once,” “Sing Street”). Milioti and Possa, who bring very different but ultimately harmonious energies to the tale, are delightful to watch together.

Milioti’s character lives in a lovely doorman apartment on a freelance book reviewer’s income, a scenario that, even with rent control , is more fanciful than anything that ever transpired on “Game of Thrones.” Similar real-estate porn is on display in a number of other episodes, which mostly revolve around hyper-articulate middle- and upper-middle-class characters. A few days after watching these episodes, décor details of some of the boho-affluent homes were easier to recall than the stories that took place within those dwellings. (For some viewers this will be a feature, not a bug.)

“Modern Love,” when it works, provides the kind of soothing comfort supplied by an inviting armchair, a warm fire, or a mug of hot tea on a chilly night. It’s the TV equivalent of a hand-knit cardigan or an Instagrammable latte; a mood of transitory wistfulness appears to be the goal, not some chest-thumping artistic statement about Life. And there’s certainly room for this kind of artisanal woolly sweater on the TV scene: The real world and the headlines it generates are not much fun these days, and when the actors in the best-written “Modern Love” installments are on their A-games, it’s hard to resist the appeal of these amiable, slightly world-weary stories of connection in the big city.