The Brittas Empire

- Season 2

(1992)

The Leisure Centre staff are happy and business booms when it is thought that Mr. Brittas has been killed while on a course in Bulgaria. However, Brittas returns from the dead to cause havoc, and Carole is determined to save her baby Ben from his zombie.

Gordon briefs the staff about his latest obsession: preventing any appearance of unprofessional intimacy, only thinking of members of the opposite sex (to gay mates Tim and Gavin's relief) and calling Carole, who is pregnant again, too old to be in danger--too many more-attractive women are around. His attempts to observe matters with Colin's help go wrong from the start: drilling peep-holes, which unfortunately look into the ladies' locker-room and showers.

When an inspection of the leisure center is announced, even Gordon realizes the abysmal attendance figures probably mean the ax, so he prepares himself to take the blame and resign. Laura feels for him and convinces the staff to hold back on the anonymous management assessment. A pigeon spraying droppings all over a sports court and the usual bumbling seem to seal Brittas' fate. Meanwhile Gordon's anniversary present that he bought for his wife (a motorbike instead of the car she wanted for ten years), made her leave him without telling him that she wants a divorce. ...

Gordon managed to annoy the Rotarians at a dinner to the extent that they set his feet in concrete. He enlists private consultant Graham Hanson's help to investigate if the constant aggravation in the Leisure Centre--no doubt his work--is the result of a syndrome attributed to the building, but he falls victim to Gordon's inverse Midas touch. Carole is horrified to discover a mouse--and worse, that her baby Ben prefers its company to hers. Laura manages to teach Gordon how to read between the lines of female 'considerate' responses; he sorts out the anniversary-gift ...

Gordon arranged for Russian pianist Vladimir Petrov to give his first free-world concert as a charity benefit in the leisure center. He ordered a grand piano, but first gets an old one--his mother's--delivered by his widower father Jim Brittas, who actually admires his son. Then the concert model and pianist arrive, neither at all safe anywhere near Gordon. However Vlad is enchanted by a mysterious pianist, none other then Carole, and the inevitable accident leads to 'slight' program changes.

Gordon closes the center for three days to put the staff through exasperating emergency simulations: the first fire drill has a 82% casualty rate, the next scenarios will be worse! Meanwhile he talks Carol out of betting £100 on the horse Tim's track tip suggested, so she puts her bag with the cash in his office. Unfortunately, Helen hides the smoldering cigarette Gavin -uneasy with her physical intimacy- gave her in the bag too. She's fuming when Gordon must go back on his promise to spend his lunch hour with her. While Gordon leads Councilor Dapping to where he ...

For once (in a million times), Gordon doesn't get a chance to mess things up himself; natural fertility does. Colin has brought a case of herbs, which gets eaten by pregnant Carole and a farmer's cow. The herb is later found to induce labor, and proves quite efficient in both cases, so the vet has a double job. Meanwhile Helen tells Laura she's pregnant, with twins like Carole, which is a hereditary trait in the Brittas family--and no coincidence.