The Office

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office launched on BBC Two in July 2001 to modest initial ratings, then accumulated cultural force across its two six-episode series and the 2003 Christmas Specials. The series won the Golden Globe for Best TV Series Musical/Comedy in 2004 (the first British sitcom ever to do so) and the BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy three years running. The American version, which premiered in 2005 with Steve Carell, ran for nine seasons and produced its own globally significant phenomenon; the British original gave the form its essential vocabulary.

David Brent (Gervais) is the middle manager of a regional paper merchants in Slough who genuinely believes he is his staff's best friend. Tim (Martin Freeman, in the role that launched his career), Dawn (Lucy Davis) and Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) form the long-suffering staff around him, with Tim and Dawn's slow-burn unspoken romance providing the show's emotional spine. The mockumentary form (fly-on-the-wall office cameras, talking-head interviews to camera, the actors playing knowingly to the lens) was not invented here but was never deployed before with the precision of pacing and casting that Gervais and Merchant achieved.

The Christmas Special, which closes the show with a moment of genuine emotional risk between Brent and a date he meets through a personal ad, justifies every cringe of the preceding twelve hours. The series's commitment to its own ending is one of its greatest gifts.

Why it's an Editor's Pick: The most influential British sitcom of the 21st century, and the show that taught modern television to be funny without taking sides between its characters. Twelve hours that contain the entire mockumentary form.