As ingenious an idea as Peep Show is, before the TV series premiered on Britain’s Channel 4 in 2003, it was hard to imagine how this idea could be translated into a successful sitcom. The show is premised on viewing the world from inside the heads of two 30-something single men who share an apartment and certain misanthropic perspectives on life, while each leads a generally disappointing existence and harbors their own respective neuroses about it. At the time, the British version of The Office had just become a sleeper hit, and sitcoms otherwise still promised warm and wholesome viewing.

For comedy fans who don’t want to hear canned audience responses, shared moments of laughter and love between characters, or happy endings, however, Peep Show is the zenith of anti-sitcom greatness. Whether it’s Mark Corrigan’s most cringeworthy moments in Peep Show, or the most awful thoughts and actions that his flatmate Jez Usborne shares with us, this series is the perfect antidote to the tried-and-tested sitcom formulas of yesteryear.

Peep Show Is The Perfect Anti-Sitcom

It Breaks Every Sitcom Rule In The Book, Which Only Makes It Funnier

Across its nine seasons, Peep Show delivered some of the best episodes of British comedy ever created, in part thanks to its wholesale rejection of sitcom norms. In general, nobody in Peep Show laughs or manages to be funny on purpose in any way, and the overall theme of the show is the excruciating pain of coexisting with others. If this description makes the series sound rather bleak, that’s exactly what it is, in all the most hilarious ways imaginable.

Peep Show doesn’t even try to look on the bright side of life, as comedies are traditionally supposed to, but wallows in the misery of the human condition, with the sense of shame and embarrᴀssment you expect from a modern British insтιтution. Old-school sitcom writers may well suggest that many of the show’s comedic beats are in the wrong places and written in the wrong way, but that’s precisely what makes it so brilliantly funny.

Mark and Jez are utterly clueless in their pursuit of self-improvement, and Peep Show presents their idiotic naivety, warts and all. The off-kilter style and format of the series, and the way it presents the often callous and self-involved thoughts of its main characters to us, also make it more relatable than the polished and heavily filtered comedic lenses of most TV comedies.

Peep Show Remains One Of The Most Influential Comedies Of The Past 20 Years

The Series Is Still Out On Its Own, But Its Enormous Influence On Other Shows Is Obvious

Over two decades after its debut, Peep Show’s use of internal narration and first-person POV camera angles still sets it apart from other sitcoms. At the same time, the show’s influence is clear to see in other seminal British comedies like The Inbetweeners and Fleabag, and stateside in fresh and innovative sitcoms like My Name Is Earl and Everybody Hates Chris.

It even set the tone for big-hitters like How I Met Your Mother, which features first-person POV narration throughout, and the US version of The Office, which arguably tweaked the cringeworthy humor of its UK counterpart via Peep Show. Anyone who loves TV comedy but hasn’t seen it yet should at least give the series a try. Peep Show isn’t for everyone, but that’s the whole point.