I tried not to like the Brittas Empire, writing it off as just a banal offering churned out from the comedy mill at the BBC. But as I viewed more I began to see Gordon Brittas as a train wreck that you could just not avert your eyes from. Everyone, including the viewers are in the joke except him because he is the joke Gordon is a well-meaning do-it-by-the-book type of manager of a Sports Centre who thinks of everything except doing the one thing that a manager should do and that is to ensure that the customers enjoy themselves. Everyone sees his flaws; his staff, his customers even his hypochondriac wife, everyone except himself and his loyal if somewhat smelly acolyte, Colin. Nonetheless, there is a noble, virtuous streak in him which redeems him and makes him above all else a sympathetic character. After the first season, the writers got to grips with the character and placed him in even more embarrassing scenarios and he continued to grow ever more unaware of his wife's adultery, her pill popping, the staff's gay relationships and the fact that the receptionist is clearly delusional and keeps her two children hidden in a cupboard behind the reception desk. Clearly, the Brittas Empire is not as well observed as the David Brent's Office and is not quite as hopeless and error prone as Frank Spencer but as an iconic representation of post Thatcherite Essex Man you could not wish for more
