Payne

"Payne" is not "Faulty Towers", and it suffers because of the obvious comparison. While "Payne" may have its occasional moments of amusement, it is a sanitized, cliched and overall dimmer relative to the original British series, that sparkled so brightly with wit and comic timing. Let's face it, John Laroqette is no John Cleese. Not by a long shot...

This show is no where near as good as Fawlty Towers, first off John Larroquette is no where near as good as John Cleese. Royal actually likes his wife, where is the hatred that was shown between Basil and Sybil? The maid- nothing compared to Connie Booth. While it is sporadically funny, I cant help think of Fawlty Towers whenever I watch.

John Larroquette is delightfully rude and self-serving as hotel owner Royal Payne in this Yank version of "Fawlty Towers"! Certainly, his version of crass attitude is different from John Cleese's, as it should be. Some viewers might say that the relationship between Payne and his wife Constance (JoBeth Williams) seems too flexibly forgiving, but there IS a definite viper-like chemistry between the two, like a more sarcastic Nick & Nora Charles. I also like (even though it is a comic-relief ethnic stereotype) Rick Batalla's portrayal of Mohammad, the bumbling bellhop. Just like Manuel in "F.T.", he is cringingly subservient to his boorish boss ... I'm waiting for a dressing-down scene of "This Royal's wife. This Royal. This smack on head." And Larroquette will give Batalla a smack on the head ... let's wait and see!

The opening credits mention that it is based on Fawlty Towers. Apart from being based in a hotel run by husband and wife, I think that that is about it. You might as well say that "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is based on "Get Carter", as they are both set in England.

Where is the animosity between the hoteliers? Where is the violence against Manuel? Why is nothing funny? How come everyone is nice to the customers and the odds aren't stacked against them?

One of the problems with remaking a previous hit, is that it sutomatically invites comparisons. They tried to do everything exactly the same; same type of building, same type of characters, same type of situations, and here, Payne falls short. No surprise at all. It's not that Payne's actors are poor, but they aren't the originals, nor have the comedic timing of the originals. On it's own, not a terrible show. It has it's funny moments, such as when Mo responded to Payne's sentence 'We're going to make love now', and then the pause, 'So get out', and Mo said 'thank you for finishing the sentence'. Like many other shows, this one fails mostly do to poor casting. Larroquette can't do 'Fawlty'. He's funny, but he can't be that character. And once you've seen Cleese at it, well, perhaps no one else can. JoBeth Williams? Nope, nope nope. Not right for the character. Rick Batalla did well as Mo, but the rest were awful. The only hope is, no one will try to duplicate Fawlty Towers again. It's been 22 years now, and hopefully we'll never see that mistake tried again. Five/ten stars, because it's watchable. But that's about it. The commercials in this American version just rips apart any continuity in what little comedy there is in the show.