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Fawlty Towers

Season 1

6 listed hours · 1975–1979 · BBC Two

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From the desk

How this season is filed

Filed by Rex Fontaine · Golden Age Dispatch

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.

TV Flash files Season 1 of Fawlty Towers (1975–1979) on BBC Two as the first listed season of 2 — 6 listed hours, 1975-09-19–1975-10-24 from “A Touch of Class” (S01E01) to “The Germans” (S01E06). Titles, dates, and synopses on file — no invented recaps.

Desk essentials in this season

  1. S01E01 A Touch of Class

    A Touch of Class opens the Torquay pressure cooker. Cleese's Basil already in class panic; Sybil combat loading. Short-run sitcom as cathedral: every farce brick laid on purpose.

  2. S01E04 The Hotel Inspectors

    The Hotel Inspectors is professional dread as a title. Manual, wait — Manuel — already the waiter weather: rage as architecture, the guest as a test the innkeeper cannot pass.

  3. S01E06 The Germans

    The Germans is the don't-mention-the-war hour the culture filed. Twelve-episode craft at full bruise: class panic, national gaffe, the hotel still a trap Basil built himself.

  1. S01E01

    A Touch of Class

    As Basil tries to raise the tone of the hotel, the aristocratic Lord Melbury comes to stay at the hotel. Basil fawns over him at every opportunity, causing himself to neglect or annoy other guests, until Polly discovers Melbury is actually a confidence trickster. Meanwhile, Sybil orders Basil to hang a picture.

  2. S01E02

    The Builders

    Maintenance is made on the lobby while the Fawltys are out, but when a misreading causes the incompetent builders to mess it up spectacularly, Basil must try to remedy the situation before Sybil finds out.

  3. S01E03

    The Wedding Party (a.k.a. Sex)

    Basil gets annoyed when a young, flirtatious couple start "hanky-pankying" under his nose and tries to avoid the advances of a wealthy French antique dealer. Meanwhile, misfortune conspires to put him in compromising situations whenever the couple are around.

  4. S01E04

    The Hotel Inspectors

    When Basil hears of hotel inspectors roaming Torquay incognito, he realises with horror that guests he has been abusing could easily be among them. Basil becomes increasingly obsessed with trying to determine which guests are hotel inspectors, but his suspects turn out not to be, to his frustration.

  5. S01E05

    Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise)

    In an effort to climb another rung in the social ladder, Basil arranges a gourmet night. Unfortunately, thanks to the chef's alcoholism, Basil must try to get hold of a duck from his friend, André. This, combined with the Fawltys' faulty car and his social awkwardness leads Basil ever closer to a nervous breakdown.

  6. S01E06

    The Germans

    With Sybil in the hospital with an ingrowing toenail, a moose's head to hang up and some German guests arriving the next day, Basil has his work cut out for him. After an attempted fire drill goes wrong and Basil lands up in the hospital with concussion, he succeeds causing much offense to the German guests after finally escaping back to the hotel. This episode is the origin of the quote "Don't mention the war."

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