Peep Show (2003)

Start here, because everything else on this list grows out of it. David Mitchell's uptight Mark and Robert Webb's feckless Jez share an apartment, and the camera shows you what each of them sees while a voice-over gives you every petty, panicked thought they are too cowardly to say out loud. That gap between the inner monologue and the mumbled reality is the engine of the cringe. Armstrong and Bain created it with Andrew O'Connor, and it ran on Channel 4 from 2003 to 2015 across nine series and 54 episodes, winning the BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy in 2008. It is a sitcom that rarely loses its nerve, and the later series hold up better than most long-running comedies do.