Only one sitcom could get away with theming an episode around What Would Jesus Do? and then stuffing its comedy with transgendered lovers, mulatto jokes, four-letter words, even a topical Tucker Carlson dig, and then wind up both wildly hilarious and warmly reassuring. It's not even blasphemous in the way it goes about its crazy business.

"Barbershop" may be the most amazing show on TV. It's certainly the fall-down funniest, and possibly the smartest. Showtime's raucously original adult half-hour ends its initial 10-episode run Sunday night at 10, still flying way too far under the radar of savvy tube viewers.

Maybe fans of the hit theatrical film(s) think they've seen plenty of street-corner philosophizing and street-cred silliness. But "Barbershop" the series isn't "Barbershop" the movie, in almost exactly the manner "M*A*S*H" on TV exceeded the reach and grasp of its big-screen precursor.

The series' characters are deeper and intensely real, and the TV scripts more precisely target sacred cows in truth-telling social commentary. Like "M*A*S*H," developed for TV by Larry Gelbart - a keen wit of both comic structure ("Your Show of Shows") and cultural insight ("Weapons of Mass Distraction") - "Barbershop" has a secret weapon in its TV master.

Writer-director John Ridley invents movies ("Three Kings"), and online superheroes that turn into movies ("Undercover Brother"). He produces TV ("Platinum," "Third Watch"), hosts AMC's Friday night "Movie Club" talkfest, writes novels ("Stray Dogs") and does National Public Radio commentary on everything from comic books to the Bush presidency. The guy's got a mind.

And every brain cell shows in "Barbershop." This dishy delight skitters into all sorts of comic styles, while giving its characters credit for being in touch with the entirety of politics, pop culture and general currents of contemporary behavior. Sunday's season finale brings all sorts of storylines to a head in the same perfect way that this adult series has been percolating since its August arrival.

Amiable barbershop owner Calvin - played by Omar Gooding in a superlative 180 from his drugged-out footballer in ESPN's "Playmakers" - is trying to keep himself afloat. He's had a crazy year, after (take a deep breath) discovering his late dad had a separate family with a white woman; sending two employees to rehab for smoking dope all day; being sued by a female lawyer holding a grudge since their eighth-grade days; seeing his wife borrow big-time to open an urban bed-and-breakfast; and bailing out his ex-con employee by putting up the shop as security.

There was also Leslie Elliard's fast-talking street politician, being out-blacked by a white man in his Chicago alderman's race, and Wes Chatham's white barber trying to curry Terri's favor by dating a white girl to prove he's not only after her because she's black.

Race - the elephant in America's living room - gets a thorough going-over here. Ridley's scripts don't dash off large-stroke statements. (He wrote seven of the 10, directing the first two and Sunday's season finale.) Instead, they work the nuances and ironies of today's racial state into the situations at hand and, more important, into the tapestry of wit. Calvin's half-black half-brother, as played by Christopher "Kid" Reid, is forever spouting about the rights of "Caublacasians" in our "full-breed dominated society."

One character's passing reference to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama claims he's so light, "you could hold him up to the light and see his kidneys." Calvin's wife only gets her business loan because the bank wants the minority points for lending to her and her blind Asian partner. After the shop sees Bill Cosby perform in the wake of his controversial remarks over black blame for poverty, it kicks off an episode revolving entirely around the meaning of personal responsibility.

And it's not heavy. Despite the sizable import of much of what "Barbershop" tackles - ex-cons, drug abuse, urban politics and entrepreneurship - it's leavened by character nuttiness and outrageous elements like the "crazy ventriloquist religious atheist nut" (he's a split personality) camped in front of the B-and-B.

Ridley also knows how to reflect the fine distinctions that make up real life and help this show feel so bona fide. The dopers' problem isn't smoking per se; it's indulging to the point of being unable to function. Ridley doesn't judge people for who they are or what they feel; how they act is how they're assessed. Just about everybody around this Chicago neighborhood (beautifully crafted on a Hollywood back lot) is a good-hearted person with some desperation idiosyncracies.

They're clever, too. A "Barbershop" script is forever doing hyperverbal pirouettes on the high wire of language, savoring phrases like a song, for their sound as well as their meaning. And the references couldn't be more vigilant. From Tom DeLay to Coldplay, they're perceptively employed not just for name-check value but as social symbols. We get Dux bed envy and a "Midnight Cowboy" montage. Kids with names like Jamajesty. The "delicious chill of ice-cold gazpacho." More than taking apart cultural stereotypes to deflate them, this show actually dissects the assumptions for analysis. Sometimes, it finds elements of authentic reflection.

In other words, "Barbershop" sees the social glass as half full. Yes, there are faults to be found in American life, but opportunities, too, and discoveries and grace. For a show that so overtly addresses disparities and differences of opinion, Ridley instills a live-and-let-live tone that's heartening. We're all in this together.

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