A drones club where laughter is no work at all

From “The Honeymooners” to “Seinfeld,” the best TV sitcoms often tell us more about ourselves and our times than the most heralded dramas. They not only allow us to see characters evolve over years but also couch bitter truths in softening humor.

This year’s must-see sitcom is “The Office,” a brilliant BBC series about a group of workers who are all bored out of their skulls at dead-end jobs in a paper product company in a colorless industrial park near London.

The central character is the boss, David Brent, who is slipping into middle age and trying to hide his disillusionment (he once dreamed of being a pop star) by constantly attempting to show he is funnier and smarter than everyone else. There’s a lot of the bullying and insecurity of Ralph Kramden in Brent, who is played with nervous obsession by the series’ co-creator, Ricky Gervais.

Nothing underscores Brent’s insensitivity and lack of self-awareness better than his inspirational talk to a receptionist who still longs to be an illustrator.

“Pipe dreams are good ... in a way,” he tells her, betraying his own loss of hope. “If you keep trying, then when it doesn’t happen, at least, you can say, ‘I gave it a try.’ ”

In the show’s first six episodes (now available on DVD), we have a great time laughing at the absurdity of Brent because he seems strong enough to take it. But in the second season, he starts unraveling when a rival gets promoted over him and new employees call his bluff. It’s a development that makes you feel unexpectedly sorry for Brent, realizing that the difference between him and Ralph Kramden is that this poor soul has no Alice or Ed Norton to love and believe in him.