Frasier

Frasier Crane can identify another person's emotional problem on the radio and then make a spectacular mess of his own evening. The original Seattle-set Frasier builds a remarkably durable sitcom around that gap between expertise and self-knowledge.

Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce are an exceptional comic pairing. Frasier and Niles encourage each other's pretensions, then compete over distinctions almost nobody else cares about. Their father Martin supplies a different set of priorities without being merely the sensible person waiting to deliver a correction.

The farces are beautifully organised. A dinner, a date or an attempt to impress someone can go wrong through choices entirely consistent with the characters. Roz and Daphne widen the household and workplace comedy rather than simply reacting to the brothers.

This is the original series, not the later revival. Its appeal is the combination of verbal wit, precise performances and people whose intelligence does very little to protect them from embarrassment. For another ensemble comedy built around highly specific personalities, The Big Bang Theory offers a very different social circle.