Amanda's

Also known as Amanda’s By The Sea, this is one of the multiple attempts that Americans have made at recreating the British hit comedy Fawlty Towers. Why they don’t just show the original series, which is as funny as anything seen on TV, is beyond me. I guess Americans just can’t comprehend the English accent or something, which is why fine shows like Men Behaving Badly, Queer As Folk, Red Dwarf, Cracker and Changing Rooms (Trading Spaces) are remade poorly instead of simply shown in their original format. In this hokey garbola, Amanda, owner of the struggling hotel Amanda's by the Sea, is played by none other than (cough) Bea Arthur. Yeah, way to bring in that young demographic. But while this is based on Fawlty Towers, the producers seem to have totally ignored what made that show so funny – Basil Fawlty himself. Instead of having a main character that gets continually driven into the dirt and in the process takes his share of slapstick bumps, you’ve got Bea Arthur just… being a wise-ass. Added to the formula is Amanda's son (Xanadu’s Fred McCarren) who has just graduated from hotel management school, his wife (B-movie breast provider, Simone Griffeth), who hates the country life, and of course there’s the non-English-speaking bellhop, Aldo (SNL’s Tony Rosato). Sounds like a laugh riot, eh? It wasn’t. It bombed.