For some, comfort viewing during the Covid-19 pandemic will take the form of familiarity: shows they’ve watched before, or shows that take place in their own everyday worlds. Why challenge yourself when daily life is challenging enough?

But comfort is wherever you find it, and for me it means going somewhere else — being lifted out of my New York apartment and losing myself in another place and time. I’ve spent the last few days immersed in new seasons of two of the best escapes available: “Babylon Berlin” (its third season premiered this month on Netflix) and “My Brilliant Friend” (its second season is playing Monday nights on HBO).

The shows take place in very different worlds, 1920s Berlin and (in the new season of “Friend”) 1960s Italy, not widely separated by time or geography but falling on either side of the stark dividing line of World War II. “Babylon Berlin” is a murder mystery, “My Brilliant Friend” a drama of friendship and family, and they’re radically distinct in their styles and storytelling approaches.

But watching them has similar pleasures, both stimulating and narcotic, and you begin to notice what they have in common. Each show devotes uncommon attention and expense to its period details — costumes, décor, automobiles and even large sets and soundstages — recreating Weimar Berlin and postwar Naples, the better to envelop us in the illusion.