Peep Show (British TV series)

Peep Show is a British television sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, and created by Andrew O'Connor, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. The series was written by Armstrong and Bain, with additional material by Mitchell and Webb, among others. It was broadcast on Channel 4 from 19 September 2003 to 16 December 2015. In 2010, it became the longest-running comedy in Channel 4 history in terms of years on air.

Peep Show follows the lives of Mark Corrigan (Mitchell) and Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne (Webb), dysfunctional best friends who share a flat in Croydon, South London. Mark is a pessimistic, socially awkward loan manager who dreams of being an intellectual, while Jeremy is a perpetually unemployed layabout who lives in Mark's spare room and who dreams of becoming a famous musician. The show uses point of view shots—giving the programme its title—with the thoughts of main characters Mark and Jeremy audible as voiceovers. The contrast between the characters' stated thoughts and feelings and their actual intentions is a source of much of the show's humour.

The show has been described by Bain as portraying "the stubborn persistence of human suffering", and, through the exploration of existentialism and loneliness, as a realistic portrayal of "why ordinary people are evil", while Armstrong said it was "about oddball male friendship, perhaps even 'masculinity'".

Despite never achieving high viewing figures during its original run, Peep Show received consistent critical acclaim and has since become a cult classic. In April 2019, three years after its final episode, the series was named the thirteenth greatest British sitcom in a poll by Radio Times. It has also been described as one of the best television programmes produced in the 21st century, and one of the best comedy series of all time.