Probably my all-time favorite comedy.
Basil lives.
I didn’t realize Carla and Diane also bunked together. My Gilligan’s Island fantasies remain intact.
If Basil was a “monster”, it was only because of the conditions he had to live in; a shrill harpy of a wife, an incompetent porter, a harassing vandal of a paperboy, the never-ending threat of the food inspector, et cetera. Basil certainly aspired to raise his social status, but his attempts to do so in the only way available to him, i.e. sucking up to the clientele, fell flat and unnoticed. He’d have abandoned the hotel business and with it his “saber-tooted tart” of a wife if he could raise himself above it. He cannot, of course; this is the best he can ever do with the mediocre talents handed to him, and so he’s stuck to suffer his lot.
Stranger
But I love heeeemmmmm!!!
I always thought (without knowing the actual airing dates) that “The Kipper and the Corpse” was the final episode, since Basil does manage to escape in the laundry hamper. I guess, given Stranger’s astonishing treatment above, that after being transferred from the truck to a ship, then another truck, then an airplane, then another truck, then finally being unloaded, he opens the lid only to find himself back inside the hotel.
I find this remarkable. Is it at all common to have a gap like this in a series?
In the US it’s not typical to have a 4 year gap. I am not sure about England, but I doubt it’s common there. Most British shows have shorter seasons, not the 22 episodes the US has. Fawlty Towers had 2 seasons of 6 shows.
Well, not super common, but Absolutely Fabulous took breaks between its seasons as well.
The Sopranos took about 1.5 years off between seasons 4 and 5 and about 2 years between 5 and 6. That’s the longest gaps I can think of in American TV.
Cleese has a young girlfriend but she’s not as young as she says she is.