NBC has finally done it. For years, the goal remained elusive, but in 2008, we have it at long last: a prime-time sitcom that has transcended all others – one so laden with complexity that it now defies all genre boundaries, rife with genuinely moving drama; earnest pathos; outrageously funny dialogue and situations; and some of the most fascinating, obnoxious and yet somehow endearing characters in all of prime-time television. I don’t like generalizations, for the most part, but I’ll go on record here: The Office (remade and reworked for U.S. audiences from the original BBC series of the same name) now qualifies as one of the two or three greatest situation comedies ever produced, surpassing even the venerable Seinfeld.

In addition to richly satirizing and skewering the level of self-ascetic, ultra-P.C. conservatism now commonplace in American boardrooms, the program has projected – and continues to project - a naturalistic and credible pace at which the characters grow and develop from episode to episode that feels wholly refreshing, even revolutionary in the sitcom format. Most of all, however, the series demonstrates an utter fearlessness in terms of where it takes its characters and plot points.

If the series has a single character that functions as a barometer for the capacity to which The Office can push the edge of the sitcom envelope, Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) is it. She’s truly one of the oddest characters that recent television has given us - multilayered, and warped on a deep-rooted, sociopathic level, but not quite completely dislikeable and intriguing for that reason. It is possible that she intrigues so because she projects such surface-level strength and assertiveness in loopy and ignorant defiance of her cracked qualities. But now, the tonal relationship between Jan and the audience has shifted; her surface-level ruses and manipulations are wearing thin because the writers have given us a deep-enough glimpse into how clinically crazy she is. (Or have they? I’m still trying to figure out her logic behind everything she has done and said – and facing the alarming possibility that there may not be any driving logic behind a woman who forces her boyfriend to undergo and then reverse multiple vasectomies). On that note - this past season hit its peak, and made sitcom history in the process, with the episode that disclosed the vasectomy bit as it explored the nuances of Jan’s sadomasochistic live-in relationship with the program’s main character, Dunder Mifflin office manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell). This, of course, was the masterful ‘Dinner Party’ episode in which viewers were treated to an “inside” view of the couple’s home life. Prime-time American television has never once presented us with such an overwhelming bombardment of extreme dysfunction in the framework of a 22-minute sitcom episode. (No, not even in Mary Hartman, All in the Family, or Married… with Children). The teleplay writers so richly steeped that episode in outrageous, left-field behavior that it finally erupted into a comic orgy of terror and violence, seething with equal parts pain and horrified laughter. From Jan’s implicit coaxing of Michael to sell two of the Scranton workers on her candle business, to Jan’s bizarre pelvic gyrations to Hunter’s music, to Michael mounting the St. Pauli Girl beer sign and Jan’s destruction of the television set by way of a Dundee, the episode evinced brazen courage. (If you missed that episode and can’t quite picture it - just imagine the heartbreaking chaos and emotional turmoil of a Cassavetes film – on laughing gas.) If The Office ever generates a spinoff, Hardin and her character should be at the center. But of course, Jan’s World would wax too excruciating even as it graced empyrean heights – no one could bear to watch. No mistake about it: there’s a reason why the producers kept Hardin’s character offscreen for so much of the fourth season – apparently Greg Daniels and Ben Silverman know full well that a little bit of Jan goes a long, long way.

Even if the dysfunction and extreme psychological issues were only confined to Jan, of course, the program would still be brilliant; but The Office is ambitious – no one on here (save two resident paragons of normality in the workspace) gets off without a dire need of serious therapy and heavy medication. This season, the writers unveiled an almost Shakespearean level of vileness in several of the supporting characters as well. Consider the apparently sweet, gentle, harmless Human Resources representative Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) – who revealed the extent of his dark heart and ruthless manipulation by letting his romantic interest in receptionist Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer), drive him into a cruel attempt to damage her boyfriend Jim Halpert’s (John Krasinski) standing at work (and a character who made a pass Pam in public, in front of everyone). Or temp-turned-executive Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak), who – though he was a bit of a pompous ass from the word ‘go’ – cruised right off the deep end into tyrant mode this season, with a lunge into cocaine addiction, emotional abuse of Jim and some genuinely un-savvy and ignorant, coke-fueled business moves that landed him in the slammer.

Though the concluding episode of Season Four felt emotionally satisfying (particularly given the epilogue with the amorous reunion of ex-lovers Dwight Schrute [Rainn Wilson] and Angela Martin [Angela Kinsey]), I must admit that I’m a little sorry to see Ryan and Toby depart, just as they began to sail out of the boundaries of comedy and turn into those awful cases that crop up on The 11 o’Clock News; it might have been fun to see Toby succeed in seriously damaging Jim’s career in a warped attempt to sway him away from Pam, or to watch Ryan sink even deeper into a drug-addled urban hell as he inflicted torment on the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch. (Sorry if that sounds sadistic). As far as the subplot that had new H.R. rep Holly (Amy Ryan) believing that Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) is mentally impaired, I’ll be the first to admit that it represented a masterstroke and wrought a fair share of belly laughs, even as it did seem heavily influenced by the 1995 Seinfeld episode ‘The Jimmy.’

Minor criticisms aside, the bottom line is that the program will continue to succeed for a simple reason: it combines involving dramatic through lines that keep us coming back for more with some of the sharpest, edgiest and most original humor on television – humor that very seldom fails to hit the mark. Some of its plot points may make it sound like heart-wrenching melodrama, but the program constantly has us laughing while we’re wincing. Consider this: a “suicide test” where office manager Michael drops a watermelon off of a roof and onto a trampoline – only to watch it bounce off and splatter all over an employee’s SUV (the joke pays off with an epilogue where the African American owner approaches his car in sheer horror and falls prey to the worst sort of misunderstanding about what the watermelon means). Or a high school career fair where the desperate Scott grows so disgruntled at his lack of intern applicants that he takes the stage, grabs a microphone and proceeds to damn all of the other companies that have set up booths. Or the disclosure of Michael and Jan’s kinky erotic games – games involving a naughty schoolgirl, in which he must wear the dress (incidents that the series producers mercifully kept offscreen).

Yes, and it gets darker than this, while (as mentioned) remaining moving and empathetic thanks to the inclusion of two long, long gestating office romances, beset not with sitcom cliches but interwoven with the complications, contradictions and de facto delays that real life hands us. That’s no mean feat.

We can only hope that the program sticks around for several more seasons, and that more viewers latch onto its ingenious charms. While its sister program on Thursday nights, the initially-brilliant 30 Rock, is rapidly falling far short of its potential and sinking like a rock into SNL-style shenanigans, The Office just continues to soar higher and higher, taking us to places where we’ve never been before in a sitcom and may never go again.