Fans of scripted comedy would be quick to point to cringe as The Office’s (UK) greatest legacy. Movies like Superbad, Bridesmaids, and last year’s Trainwreck certainly have taken up this mantle and brought what could be called “squirmcore” to the mass market. Keener surveyors of comedy will be quick to point out that another, and perhaps even squirmcorier, series predates The Office (UK) by a year. Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm so successfully broke from the multicam format for HBO in 2000 and quickly cemented itself as utterly obsessed with those moments of cringe that surrounded the series’ protagonist, a fictionalised Larry David. However, I would argue that cringe was only a secondary product of The Office (UK). Gervais’ and Merchant’s true innovation, and what made The Office (UK) the most influential sitcom of this millennium so far, is that it is a UK series built unlike any UK series. The series’ long-reaching success comes from two guys from the UK trying to make a U.S. series.

There are two words that crystalise the comedic divide between the UK and U.S. that is wider than the Atlantic: respectively, Cruelty and Heart. Fawlty Towers still stands as the most instructive example of this in UK televisual history. Cruelty spouts forth from the mouths and open hands of the characters. The protagonist Basil is subjected to as much cruelty as he is able to dish out, usually with Manuel as his catharsis’ target. The end of each episode might as well conclude with a mass shooting and suicide given the fever pitch to which Basil is worked up. The closest thing to a happy ending in the 12-episode series, Basil finding some money at the end of Communication Problems, is quickly shattered along with the vase Basil drops from his hand. By comparison, the conventional U.S. sitcom (literally you can take any, except for Seinfeld), is structured to preserve the happy ending. And not just one in which characters are victorious. The U.S. sitcom, from Fresh Prince of Bel Air, to Friends, to Taxi, concludes with a healthy dose of Heart™. Through the comedy of the rest of the episode, the characters learn some lesson about the integrity of the familial unit, the importance of friendship, the embrace of otherness, or really any weighty ideal the creators want. To reiterate succinctly: the UK sitcom baptises by fire, the U.S. baptises by love.