The IMDB lists episodes as having been produced in 1975 and 1979. What’s up with this? Did the show have it’s inaugural season in '75 and then go on a 4-year hiatus until it’s second (and last) season? This seems odd, but then again I’m not familiar with the inner workings of the BBC.
The original series only lasted 13 episodes. The second listing is the rebirth of the show.
Actually, they filmed half the episodes that exist in 1975. They reunited in 1979 to do the rest.
It was more of a special than a regular series.
Most of the best episodes were in 1975(Germans, Hotel Inspectors, Builders).
Slight correction: there are 12 episodes of FT, not 13.
There are many differences between the US and British TV industries. In the US, a typical ‘series’ is expected to last for a complete season, maybe 22-26 shows. If a show is a hit, it makes good marketing sense to try and keep the show running one year after another (until such time as the audience starts to decline). And all those involved (producers, writers, actors) tend to work hard to try and achieve recurring annual success, because the rewards can be very significant.
Here in the UK, the TV industry has to run along completely different economic lines. The typical return-on-investment for even a successful, popular show is much lower than it is in the US, so the budgets are much smaller, and a producer may only have sufficient budget to make 3,4 or 6 shows in a given financial year. As such, with rare exceptions (such as the top-rated all-year-round soap operas) it’s very difficult for writers and performers to make good money just from TV alone, so most of them will have other projects on the go, with the occasional TV series as an added bonus. Hence even if good writers and performers have a hit show, such as FT, it can be a year or two before they are all available again to do some more.
Another factor is that the writers’ may not be inclined to write more than 12 or 18 shows. John Cleese and Connie Booth took about 6 weeks to write each episode of FT. After writing 12 very good episodes, they may have felt they had done all they could with those characters. In an interview, Cleese said that Shakespeare only got 3 hours out of Hamlet, whereas he got six out of Basil, so he felt that was enough.
In the US, there is usually enough money involved to hire a large-ish team of writers, some or all being replaced from season to season, with the hope being that they can generate enough fresh ideas to sustain quality and popularity. Over here, there isn’t the budget to do this. Shows tend to be the work of just one or two writers, and there is only so much juice to be squeezed from the same mind or minds.