The Day Today (1994)

Six half-hours on BBC2 that nailed the grammar of television news so precisely that real bulletins have looked slightly ridiculous ever since. Chris Morris anchors with thunderous self-importance, the graphics swoop and clang, and the correspondents inflate nothing into crisis. Armando Iannucci co-created it from the radio series On the Hour, and Steve Coogan's sports reporter Alan Partridge is already here, fumbling his metaphors. Short enough for one sitting, dense enough to rewatch for the background jokes.