Basil Fawlty and his wife Sybil clumsily run a hotel, Fawlty Towers, and their staff includes maid Polly and waiter Manuel from Barcelona, who still has troubles with English language skills. They enouncter several problems: while Basil is away, cheap construction workers build a wall that blocks the dinning room, which now has to be demolished; a hotel inspector is among the guests, but Basil doesn't know who he is; the cook is drunk and incapacitated, so Basil has to transport cooked duck from a far away restaurant to serve dinner for his guests, but due to a mix up, he only brings them pudding; a half-deaf guest, Mrs. Richards, complains about everything; an angry American couple arrives late and demands dinner after the cook is not there anymore...
The 12-episode comedy series "Fawlty Towers" enjoys a huge reputation, but is in reality still a notch below all the hype. It constantly walks a line between inspired, hilarious humor and forced, contrived and strained buffoonery, struggling to be more former than the latter, but is not always in control. The most is achieved from John Cleese's excellent performance as Basil Fawlty, presenting him, surprisingly, as deliberately unlikeable, arrogant and conceited, not even bothering to try to charm the viewers, but maybe therein lies the appeal of his cynical humor. Co-writer Connie Booth also steals the show as the charming maid Polly, but she is sadly underused, and the series needed a spotlight episode where she is the lead for a change. The jokes are a hit-or-miss affair. Some are wonderful. Others are typical forced humor based on old people not hearing / mishearing something, the protagonists trying to deceive someone and hide chaos behind their backs, shouting, nervous / exaggerated gestures... The latter has been done to death, has aged poorly, which reduces the enjoyment value of some moments of the show.
The better moments manage to sparkle through occasionally, though. For instance, there is this dialogue between Basil and a lady guest in episode 3: "Mrs. Lloyd, can I have a word with you?" - "You are." Episode 5 could have had a better punchline at the end than just that Basil hits his broken car, which stopped on the street, with a branch. Likewise, despite pushing the envelope in episode 6 about German guests and Basil, his head hurt, saying all the wrong, inappropriate things with regards to World War II, it could have been funnier. Season two is superior and has a tighter rhythm. In episode 7, for instance, Basil makes a comment after a happy guest left: "A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed." In that same episodes, as the waiter Manuel, who cannot speak English properly, pretends he doesnt know anything about a horse race bet, Basil says: "I'm gonna sell you to a vivisectionist!" Episode 8 has a great joke of Basil in another room, stretching his hand out to push a switch on the wall because there is no electricity, but then a woman leans on said wall, stands there, Basil stretches his hand out to click the switch again, but only inadvertently touches her chest. The final episode is really well done, with a great premise that Basil is shocked to find out Manuel's pet hamster in a cage is actually a rat, right when the health inspector is about to show up. "Fawlty Towers" is a fun, cozy show, though it offers more standard humor than unexpected one.
Grade:++
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