Originally broadcast from February 19 to October 25, 1979, the second and final season of BBC2's Fawlty Towers finds Torquay hotelier Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) continuing to insult and terrorize guests and staffers alike, while Basil's wife Sybil (Prunella Scales) proves anew that she is the most spectacularly unhelpful "helpmate" in the history of domestic relations. The first of the season's six episodes, "Communication Problems," finds Basil the prime suspect when a wealthy and deaf-as-a-post guest insists that she's been robbed. In "The Psychiatrist," Basil's inherent paranoia and Sybil's suspicions that her husband is cheating on her reach hitherto unimagined heights. An American guest's demands for after-hour room service drives Basil batty and the other guests to mount a "revolt" in "Waldorf Salad." "The Kipper and the Corpse" is set in motion by the death of a guest after being served breakfast in bed, obliging Basil to hide both the body and the breakfast! "The Anniversary" is a slapstick comedy of errors involving a surprise party and a missing guest of honor. And in the concluding episode, "Basil the Rat," the hotel's Spanish waiter, Manuel (Andrew Sachs), courts disaster when he adopts a "Siberian hamster."
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
