John Cleese, Ballard Berkeley, and Andrew Sachs in Fawlty Towers (1975) The Builders
S1E2
Over his wife's objections, Basil hires his usual firm of incompetents (O'Reilly's) to do some carpentry work in the hotel lobby. With both Basil and Sybil out for the afternoon, they leave Polly in charge. She decides to have a nap, leaving the English-challenged Manuel in charge. When Basil returns, he finds a solid wall where once stood doors to the dining room and still no door to the kitchen per his work order. Sybil takes an I-told-you-so attitude and insists he hire a qualified builder to fix the mess, but Basil decides to get O'Reilly back to right the wrong, but he still makes a mess of it as well.
*John Cleese himself named this as "the least good" of the episodes that were filmed, owing to a general lack of laughter in the studio on recording day. He recalls that members of the Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation were visiting the studio that day and many of them were in the front row seats, apparently not entirely amused.


















