It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, at the squire’s house in a little village somewhere in England, there came a loud banging on the door. In walked a large figure in a yellow slicker, dripping water all over the polished floor. It was the new vicar come to meet her parishioners, and it was (gasp!) a woman.

So begins The Vicar of Dibley, one of the best “BritComs” to come across the pond from BBC television. In the tradition of good comedy, this half-hour show put a bit of truth in the spotlight and tugged at it until people could laugh at themselves. The year was 1994 and with Anglicans all over England gasping at their first sight of women priests at the altar, the Church of England could only benefit from anything that relieved the tension. Enter the Rev. Geraldine Granger, perfectly played by Dawn French, to begin a hilarious ride over one ecclesiastical speed bump after another.

Dibley — “the inbreeding capital of the world” — was in mourning. The last vicar, the Rev. Pottle, had keeled over and died in the middle of a service, in front a congregation of five, which included the organist and the verger. He had served St. Barnabas well for 80 years, and everyone agreed they would long remember his Christmas sermon — the one he preached every year. When he died, the parish council begged the bishop for a young man — emphasis on young (their first mistake) — who would bring villagers back to church and fill the empty pews once again.

But they got Geraldine, and she was outrageous from the get-go. Her first response to the stunned faces of her new parishioners was sympathetic and understanding. “You were expecting a bloke — beard, Bible, bad breath. Yes. And instead you got a babe with a bob and a magnificent bosom!” Within a week of her arrival, the outraged chair of the Parish Council drafted a strong letter to the bishop requesting that this woman be recalled and a proper vicar (read: male) be sent. His reasoning: “If Jesus wanted women to spread the gospel he would have appointed them. It’s Matthew, Mark Luke and John, not Sharon, Tracy, Tara and Debbie.”

But the Council wasn’t completely in agreement. They voted to give her one Sunday to prove herself before sending the letter. It was standing room only at the church on Sunday, with curiosity-seekers eager to see the new woman vicar. But they were curiosity-seekers worshipping God, and the episode ended with the camera panning the countryside and loud, lusty voices of the enthusiastic congregation singing “Immortal, Invisible God only wise.”

The Dibley characters were strangely familiar: There was Jim Trott, who always says “no, no, no” before saying yes to anything; Frank Pickel, the parish clerk, who “minutes” every word — every single word — spoken at Council meetings; the ultra-conservative David Horton, the local squire, who chairs the Council with an iron hand and little tolerance for other opinions; and his son Hugo, who mostly concurs with Dad, except when, to his father’s horror, he falls in love and married Alice Tinker, the sweet but empty-headed verger. And old Letitia Cropley, the only woman on the Council, plays the organ, arranges the flowers and cooks culinary horrors for special events (anchovy and peanut butter appetizers, for instance). Letitia rode nude through the village as Lady Godiva three years earlier, but almost no one watched. All together, this odd bunch, along with the vicar and Cecil, the choirmaster who doesn’t get out much, stumbled its way through ministry in the name of Christ and into the hearts of fans, Christian or not.

The Vicar of Dibley debuted on British television within months of the ordination of the first 33 women priests in the Church of England in March 1994. The ordinations had been approved by the General Synod in 1993 but had to wait for Parliament’s approval. (Women had been ordained deacons since 1988.) Dibley engaged this most divisive issue head-on with a lead character that personified much of what traditional church-goers feared most of women clergy. Geraldine Granger was bodacious, flirtatious, plump and obviously female, irreverent and out-spoken, addicted to chocolate and ribald jokes, and ever on the lookout for a man and a love life. Geraldine broke enough stereotypes to alert the countryside, and they were all the better for it.

There were only 18 episodes of The Vicar of Dibley filmed from 1994 to 1999, all written by Richard Curtis with occasional collaboration by other writers. The program ended because several of the key players wanted to do other things, although Dawn French is quoted on one of dozens of Dibley Web sites as saying she would happily return if Curtis would write the scripts.

The fans — and there are many of us — wait in patient hope for a second coming. Until then, the faithful can purchase the series on DVD at amazon.com and other DVD retailers.