Fawlty Towers
Basil the Rat (a.k.a. Rats)
TV Flash files “Basil the Rat (a.k.a. Rats)” as a desk essential hour — Fawlty Towers (1975–1979) on BBC Two, season 2, episode 6, aired 1979-10-25, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S02E06: listed hour 12 of 12 in the Fawlty Towers guide, last listed hour of season 2. It aired 1979-10-25 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “The Anniversary” (S02E05). No later hour is listed in this guide.
Essential hour: “Basil the Rat (a.k.a. Rats)”. Basil the Rat closes the twelve. Two seasons, a rodent-title bow: the rage, the waiter, the cathedral complete. No third series required for the form to become scripture.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
The local health inspector issues a long list of hygienic aberrations which the staff must immediately sort out, or else face closure. After Manuel's pet rat escapes from his cage and runs loose in the hotel, the staff must catch it before the inspector finds it first. At the same time, they must try and discern which veal cutlets are safe to eat after one covered in rat poison gets mixed up with the others and almost every subsequent guest orders veal.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Basil the Rat (a.k.a. Rats) sit in the Fawlty Towers guide?
S02E06 is listed hour 12 of 12 — last listed hour of season 2, season 2 episode 6.
When did Fawlty Towers S02E06 air?
Basil the Rat (a.k.a. Rats) aired 1979-10-25 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Is twelve episodes really the whole show?
Yes. Two series, deliberate scarcity. Watch all of them — short-run sitcom as cathedral, not a missing-season mystery.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twelve episodes. John Cleese's Basil turns a Torquay hotel into a pressure cooker of class panic, Sybil combat, and don't-mention-the-war. Short-run sitcom as cathedral: every farce brick laid on purpose. The rage, the waiter Manuel, and proof that less can outlive whole sitcom empires.
Picture a Torquay hotel that only needed twelve keys. 1975–1979, BBC Two: hostile hotelier Basil Fawlty terrorizes guests and staff in farces that escalate to operatic disaster. Fawlty Towers, from John Cleese and Connie Booth, runs two series — deliberate scarcity inspired by a real hotelier the Pythons once encountered. Prunella Scales's Sybil, Booth's Polly, Andrew Sachs's Manuel. Class panic, marital combat, don't-mention-the-war. Every farce brick laid on purpose. On the palate: damp carpet, a sign that will…
Filed against
- John Cleese as Basil Fawlty
John Cleese’s various Monty Python’s Flying Circus turns rewired sketch so a punchline did not have to bow — 1960s catalog BBC cutouts, then Fawlty Towers stretching the rage into twelve episodes of a Torquay pressure cooker. TV Flash…
- Prunella Scales as Sybil Fawlty
Prunella Scales played Sybil Fawlty on Fawlty Towers, twelve 1970s episodes in which John Cleese’s Basil turns a Torquay hotel into a pressure cooker of class panic, Sybil combat, and don’t-mention-the-war. Short-run sitcom as cathedral:…
- Connie Booth as Polly Sherman
Connie Booth played Polly Sherman on Fawlty Towers — twelve episodes, John Cleese's Basil turning a Torquay hotel into a pressure cooker of class panic, Sybil combat, and don't-mention-the-war. Short-run sitcom as cathedral: every farce…
- Andrew Sachs as Manuel
Andrew Sachs’s Manuel made Fawlty Towers’ twelve-episode cathedral ring — John Cleese’s Basil as class panic, Sybil combat, don’t-mention-the-war, and a Torquay waiter who turned farce bricks into a national catchphrase. Short-run sitcom…