This show went for four seasons. The first season is quite enjoyable. The second is still pretty good, although it wears thin by the end of the season. By the fourth season, the show has become something so distant from it's beginnings that it's not even comparable, and in my opinion is barely watchable. Thus, there's plenty in the first season to draw you in... but it's probably not worth the extended stay, so to speak.
On the show's strengths --- the first season is well acted, has some amusing minor bits with a range of often unusual and often well-nuanced characters, and establishes the Hotel staff as impeccably sophisticated, and committed to remaining morally ambivalent so as to provide the best service for their clientele --- and this is what makes the show compelling; the glitz and the glamor of the Hotel is well-established with excellent sets, and everything in the first season speaks to the connection between class sophistication and discretion; what makes the show really exceed a lot of other shows which take a peek at the luxurious life of the upper class is that the sophistication/discretion theme is shown in it's worst and best lights, and the show as a whole attends a certain 'moral ambivalence' which makes it rather thought-provoking. The audience is shown exactly how much of 'class' is built on artifice, but it also makes the life of luxury look genuinely seductive.
While the writing begins to get notably weaker towards the end of season 2, it's not until Max Beesly's character (Charlie) leaves the show that it gets positively wretched and loses all lustre.
Unfortunately, by the fourth season, the show has lost all tact and elegance; it becomes a show about the blue-collar sensibilities of a sitcom staff amid unreasonably mean-spirited guests who are consistently trying to 'discredit' the Hotel. The writing gets so bad that the shows really aren't comparable. The writers no longer make the luxurious life seem tempting, but rather a filthy indulgence to be seen as a character flaw in the rich. The show also becomes more an attempt at comedy than drama. And sadly, the comedy feels horribly out-of-place; it's a slapstick, rather overacted kind of humor which might work well enough in a show about a wacky motel full of transients --- but it seems oblivious to the foundations of dry wit and subtlety that make the first season work so well. The characters all become caricatures.
All in all, rather a disappointment. Begins as enticing, but ends up being quite commonplace.
On the show's strengths --- the first season is well acted, has some amusing minor bits with a range of often unusual and often well-nuanced characters, and establishes the Hotel staff as impeccably sophisticated, and committed to remaining morally ambivalent so as to provide the best service for their clientele --- and this is what makes the show compelling; the glitz and the glamor of the Hotel is well-established with excellent sets, and everything in the first season speaks to the connection between class sophistication and discretion; what makes the show really exceed a lot of other shows which take a peek at the luxurious life of the upper class is that the sophistication/discretion theme is shown in it's worst and best lights, and the show as a whole attends a certain 'moral ambivalence' which makes it rather thought-provoking. The audience is shown exactly how much of 'class' is built on artifice, but it also makes the life of luxury look genuinely seductive.
While the writing begins to get notably weaker towards the end of season 2, it's not until Max Beesly's character (Charlie) leaves the show that it gets positively wretched and loses all lustre.
Unfortunately, by the fourth season, the show has lost all tact and elegance; it becomes a show about the blue-collar sensibilities of a sitcom staff amid unreasonably mean-spirited guests who are consistently trying to 'discredit' the Hotel. The writing gets so bad that the shows really aren't comparable. The writers no longer make the luxurious life seem tempting, but rather a filthy indulgence to be seen as a character flaw in the rich. The show also becomes more an attempt at comedy than drama. And sadly, the comedy feels horribly out-of-place; it's a slapstick, rather overacted kind of humor which might work well enough in a show about a wacky motel full of transients --- but it seems oblivious to the foundations of dry wit and subtlety that make the first season work so well. The characters all become caricatures.
All in all, rather a disappointment. Begins as enticing, but ends up being quite commonplace.