The sun may have long ago set on the British Empire, but there is still one place where Britannia rules and America is perceived as but a big colony ripe for British wares: the cable channel BBC America.

BBC America is making a big push for name-brand recognition as more American homes adopt digital cable and satellite service. A one-stop media mart for all your Anglophilic needs, BBC America offers reruns of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Absolutely Fabulous, and Keeping Up Appearances, as well as the weekly broadcast of Top of the Pops, a daily BBC newscast, and the British reality-TV sensations Changing Rooms (which was Americanized on cable’s Learning Channel as Trading Spaces) and What Not to Wear, in which two fashionistas use webcam surveillance to prevent clothes shoppers from making dire purchases.

But BBC America has also debuted, amid a recently revved-up advertising blitz and much press coverage, the newer Brit-coms Coupling (10 p.m. Sundays), Manchild (11:20 p.m. Sundays), and The Office (10:20 p.m. Thursdays). Coupling, the most popular show on British TV, is a jaw-droppingly brazen clone of Friends; it’s a depressing example of our culture being sold back to us disguised with a British accent. Coupling (the first season is now available on DVD) stars three boys, three girls, and a coffeehouse. There is lots of sexual innuendo, a hyped-up laugh track, and did I mention the sexual innuendo? NBC is planning an American version of Coupling (to eventually take the place of Friends), which raises the question, why? The show is so slick, rote, and cloying, it’s almost an American sit-com already — just buy the damned broadcast rights and slap it on! Viewers would have to be denser than Joey on Friends to fail to grasp the intricacies of Coupling. The characters all slept with each other. Every other joke has the word " arse " or " shag " in the punch line. It’s not bloody brain surgery.

Then there’s Manchild, which is being billed as a male Sex and the City. There are similarities. Narrator Terry (the adorably wry Nigel Havers) — divorced, 50, sheepishly trying to act 30 — is as witty, self-aware, and vulnerable as Carrie Bradshaw. And his pals — swinging bachelor Patrick (Don Warrington), erectile-challenged recent divorcee James (Anthony Stewart Head of Buffy fame), and long-married and bored Gary (Ray Burdis) — are as much middle-aged-male archetypes as Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte are single-female archetypes.

But Manchild is a charming piece of work in its own right. The men’s sexual sensibility is staunchly British — equal parts repression, guilt, and smut. But the show is a surprisingly tender and wistful look at aging; the manchildren may chase after women young enough to be their daughters, but what they really want is the connection and intimacy that can come only from long-term monogamy — the very thing they’re running from. CBS is, again pointlessly, making an American version of Manchild. I’m betting the repression, guilt, and smut get lost in translation.

BBC America’s finest contribution to American pop culture so far has been its launch of The Office. The celebrated sit-com that won the British Emmy last year has been compared with the comic strip Dilbert, and was enthusiastically blurbed by no less than Simpsons creator Matt Groening (a man who does not blurb lightly). And The Office lives up to the hype. Universal in its depiction of cubicle life, The Office makes no concession to the American workplace-sit-com formula. There is no laugh track, no frenetic action, no too-clever sex jokes, no cute daydreams, no outsize office kooks. A mockumentary about the daily grind at a suburban London branch of the (fictional) Wernham Hogg paper-supply company, The Office recalls the deadpan lunacy of This Is Spinal Tap or Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. The joke is that the characters are completely unaware of the joke.

The Office is relentlessly true to life in its portrayal of the trifecta of workplace dysfunction: boredom, contempt, and incompetence. Branch manager David Brent (played by Ricky Gervais, who also co-writes and directs the show) is a goateed, over-age frat boy who’d rather be his workers’ pal than their boss. His eyes darting to the supposedly unobtrusive cameras as if pleading for acceptance, he puts himself forward as a visionary of managerial benevolence and wisdom. Of course, he’s an idiot.

David is unfit to lead. He blunders into sexist remarks. He’s the kind of boss who takes every new hire, even temps and interns, on a full tour of the office, stopping to joke with uncomfortable staffers and point out the mechanical singing fish on the wall. When David is warned by his boss that layoffs are coming, he attempts to boost morale by telling his workers that the rumors are false and nobody will be cut. David is hilariously pathetic, a lovably earnest disaster. His mock-interview scenes, where he expounds on his management theories, are instant classics: " When people say, ‘Would you rather be thought of as a funny man or a great boss?’, I always say to them, ‘They’re not mutually exclusive.’ "

Gervais is also brilliantly squirmy in his scenes with David’s no-nonsense boss, Jennifer Taylor Clark (Stirling Gallacher), who threatens to shut down the branch if he can’t get his people to shape up. He assures her that he’s up to the task: " When the disciplining has to be done, then the laughter stops for that amount of time, then continues. "

David is surrounded by a roster of painfully funny office types, beginning with his young administrative assistant, Gareth Keenan (Mackenzie Crook). A pale scarecrow figure with dark circles under his eyes and a blond, modified Moe Howard haircut, the self-important Gareth likes to tell his co-workers (and the documentary crew) that he is a former army lieutenant, which naturally qualifies him to be the office’s " team leader " (glorified hall monitor).

" Not only have I got people skills, but I am trained in covert operations, " he boasts to the unseen interviewer in a segment that played like a vintage Python skit (think Michael Palin as a blithering blowhard). " Do you know the phrase, ‘Softly, softly catchee monkey’? I could catch a monkey. If I was starving, I could. I would make poison darts out of the poison from deadly frogs. One milligram of that poison could kill a monkey. Or a man. Prick yourself and you’ll be dead within a day, or longer. "

Gareth idolizes David, who is Hardy to his Laurel. In one magnificently straight-faced scene, David and Gareth face the cameras and discuss the scourge of sexist Internet porn, which David demonstrates by typing " sex fetish " into a search engine. " Look at this: ‘Dutch girls must be punished for having big boobs.’ Now, you do not punish someone, Dutch or otherwise, for having big boobs, " says David disgustedly, eager to demonstrate his feminist solidarity.

" They should be rewarded, " seconds Gareth, solemnly.

David and Gareth are impressed with each other, which is a good thing since no one else is. Incorrigible prankster Tim Canterbury (Martin Freeman) openly mocks the oblivious David and makes Gareth’s life an office hell by encasing his stapler in gelatin and making prank calls to his cell phone (which Gareth wears in a shoulder holster). Bored receptionist Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis) seethes with palpable hatred for David, probably because, in his idea of a joke, he calls her into his office and tells her she’s been fired (the horrified look on his face when she starts to cry is wince-inducing).

More than one production company has reportedly expressed interest in making an American version of The Office, which is as superfluous an idea as turning Coupling back into Friends. The Office is perfect as it is, a sharp, ill-tempered slice of life.

There is one BBC America offering, however, that seems immune to the threat of Americanization. So Graham Norton (11:30 p.m., weeknights), part talk show, part cornball British music-hall mess, stars the gabby, elfin Norton, an array of bewildered celebrities (everyone from Ivana Trump to Orlando Bloom), and a suspiciously randy studio audience. Norton, who makes Elton John seem butch, is a very naughty boy who regularly makes short work of the royal family — particularly the queen’s " don’t ask, don’t tell " youngest, Edward — in jokes that cross the line, double back, and cross it again. " The queen is having a tea party for the Jubilee! " went one quip. " Oh, Edward is so excited! You know, he’s never happier than when he has a mouthful of Earl Grey. "

Yes, it’s reassuring to know that, when it comes to flaming queens with wicked tongues, there’ll always be an England.