User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-4028641-20151101035254/@comment-24894325-20160127004040

I hate to see this topic forgotten and buried. To keep the topic going, here is a funny tidbit I found quite by accident (especially given that there were some subtle pro-Petronella edits recently).

I know that everyone agrees at least that Basil should not be taken seriously. But here is an article too amusing/suspiciously coincidental not to mention it: Will it be Dr Basil? from The Sun, March 22, 1988. The article purports that John Cleese was considered for the role of the Doctor for a Doctor Who movie. I did not really fact check whether he really was (also it was posted well before having a chance to be a plant). But might I remind that the wife of Basil Fawlty was played by... a Prunella Scales? I am far from being the first on picking up the Fawlty vibe in Basil. But I have not yet seen Cleese connected to Doctor Who so directly. And Petronella is another rare P-nella name...