Fawlty Towers is ostensibly an ensemble show, but aside from the wacky mistakes of the bumbling Spanish waiter Manuel, it's really all about Cleese's Basil Fawlty. Cleese uses everything he knows about physical comedy -- including how to maximize his lung capacity for sheer volume -- as the hotel manager who seems to hate his guests even more than he hates his wife and employees, and yet will do everything he can to hide disasters from them. Covering up corpses, outmaneuvering health inspectors, racing to pick up a takeout roast duck and trying not to offend German guests are just a few of the things that cause him to take comically huge strides and call everyone within earshot an imbecile.

Basil Fawlty was actually based on an actual hotel manager Cleese encountered while a member of Monty Python, one who criticized Terry Gilliam's table manners and threw bus schedules at guests. There will doubtless be many anecdotes, about the real Fawlty and the TV version, in Cleese's all-new commentary for this set, as well as in the new interviews with the rest of the cast. There's even a tour of the town of Torquay, the town where the show took place, and where the original hotel stood. They aren't new episodes of the show, but some new Fawlty Towers-related content is better than nothing.

Blackadder may have twice as many episodes in its complete collection as Fawlty Towers (plus a few specials, including a Christmas Carol parody), but it somehow seems just as small -- probably because each of their four series is a completely different show, giving us only six episodes to get to know each world. Rowan Atkinson plays the main character throughout, but each series sees him scheming venomously in a different era, with a different supporting cast and a different job description. In The Black Adder he's a prince in the Middle Ages, but in Blackadder II he's a Lord in Queen Elizabeth's court, while Blackadder the Third sees him as the butler to the Prince of Wales in Regency times, and Blackadder Goes Forth finds him on the front lines of World War I.

While Atkinson is at his most sarcastic and jaded here (the polar opposite of Mr. Bean), it's the supporting players who bring a lot of the humor by setting up his hilariously dry commentary. Hugh Laurie is a recurring face, playing the cheery and idiotic Prince of Wales throughout Series 3 (and a similar dope in Series 4), and Laurie's old partner Stephen Fry plays the Queen's Lord Chamberlain in Series 2 and a general in Series 4. (He also makes a guest appearance as the Duke of Wellington in Series 3.) Tony Robinson plays Blackadder's assistant/lackey Baldrick in all four series, and his naively optimistic utterances earn the lion's share of the laughs. Robinson would also play the role in later specials included in the DVD collection, including Blackadder's Christmas Carol, Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (a 15-minute episode set during the English Civil War) and Blackadder: Back and Forth, in which a present-day Blackadder and Baldrick hop through time in a time machine, including a trip to the time of the dinosaurs.

A fifth Blackadder series was often suggested, but never materialized, which is a shame, as the specials seem to indicate there's still life in the characters. Basically, it's a crime that both of these shows were allowed to end with so few episodes under their belt, but then, it's hard to think of an American series that has provided such a rich experience in such a short amount of airtime.