“Some of the things most compelling about the show aren’t even funny,” Mr. Kwapis said. “But they make you cringe. Now I go to pitch meetings where executives say, ‘I want that cringe-worthy comedy.’ ”

That any of this happened is mind-boggling for almost everyone who was involved at the show’s inception, beginning with Ben Silverman, the executive producer (and later, head of NBC’s entertainment division), who chased Mr. Gervais all over London to secure the American rights. “What was required to get this show on was almost herculean,” Mr. Silverman said.

The NBC chief executive at the time, Jeff Zucker, had proclaimed that no single-camera comedy could ever be a hit show. (Single-camera shows are shot on sets and locations and feel like movies; three-camera comedies like “The Big Bang Theory” are shot on stages in front of audiences and feel like theater.) Mr. Zucker was not an initial fan of NBC’s version of “The Office,” and he wasn’t alone. “A lot of people didn’t get it,” Mr. Daniels said.

John Krasinski, who memorably inhabited the show’s male romantic lead, Jim, recalled that during the shooting of the first six episodes, a network executive would show up every Friday and say, “This episode is so good — unfortunately, it’s the last one we’re going to do.”

Expectations among critics were also low because the British version, created by Mr. Gervais and Stephen Merchant, had been deemed an instant classic, and NBC had misfired two seasons earlier in a remake of the British comedy “Coupling.” Mr. Daniels recalled watching the British “Office,” with its ironic tone, and thinking, “Oh my God, how did they pull this off?”A breakthrough came when Mr. Daniels realized that between Americans’ newborn fascination with reality shows and their growing habit of recording even mundane events in their own daily lives, “being in front of a camera and talking to a camera became a most relatable experience.”

The idea of allowing characters to speak directly to the camera, another device straight out of “Survivor,” also opened up possibilities, Mr. Daniels said, because “you can tell stories in a first-person point of view.” That technique is now commonplace on shows like “Modern Family” and countless commercials.