Product: Hotel Babylon - Season 1 (2008)
Rating: 2.0
Grand Hotel it ain't
And I thought only Hollywood could produce such self-conscious, unfunny, witless television.Handsome Max Beesley was delightful in Tom Jones, but his career, aside from the big money, has taken a real nose-dive with this series. Likewise, Dexter Fletcher saw much better days with Guy Ritchie. Except for the 'hard-nosed business woman', the women are self-serving bimbos that Las Vegas would be proud of, but all the characters are monochromatic and shameless stereotypes: unctuous Italian, gay black, trampy receptionist. The latter is also a consummate, if failed (due to stupidity), gold-digger who regularly sleeps with any good-looking guest who's rich enough. In fact, the whole place is run like a high-class brothel.These people supposedly work is a 5-star hotel in London, but their every action belies the 'invisible service' that one might expect in such an establishment. Week after week they bully, preach to, invade the privacy of, and otherwise interfere with the lives of high-toned clients. No one ever gets fired, no matter how egregious and selfish their behavior. It can be said that the characters and scripts display all the emotional maturity, and depth, of a ten year old. The episode in which the cliched straight Italian barman affects being gay (taught by the token gay black desk clerk) in order to get a big tip from a gay guest, is both embarrassing and offensive.Other reviewers find this series addictive. I, too, must admit that I watched the whole first series on a popular streaming service, but mostly in order to see if they could maintain such high standards of superficiality and questionable moral tone throughout. They did.At least I didn't suffer the humiliation of paying for it.