Elaine Stritch, Broadway and Cabaret Diva, was partially responsible for this series - "The Two of Us" was based on a Britcom Ms. Stritch starred in, called "Two's Company" about an American author who moves to London and deals with a butler who has no regard for how people in the United States behave. The personality clashes of that programme helped launch this Americanized version.
We had a bit of a revival of domestic servants on TV in the 1980s. There was "Benson," who originally was a part of the cast of that parody of daytime dramas, "Soap," There was "Mr. Belvedere" and there was Florence, maid to "The Jeffersons," while the staffs at Southfork Ranch on "Dallas" and the Carrington estate on "Dynasty" are too numerous to mention.
The "two" of "The Two of Us" are Nan Gallagher (Mimi Kennedy) a daytime talk show host and her teen daughter Gabby (Dana Hill). Cubby (Oliver Clark) is a friend of Nan's who frequently drops by. Nan and Gabby live in a sprawling Upper East Side town house, so she definitely needs help to keep the place in order, and that's where Peter Cook's character, Brentwood, enters the story.
In "Dudley," Dudley Moore's first US sitcom, which I listed at #377 on this list of the 400 Most Notable TV Shows Set in New York (and Mr. Moore was partnered with Peter Cook as a comedy team for years), I mentioned that the parallels to the character "Arthur," from the movie of that name, was a source of some of the humor, but that "Dudley" didn't have a Hobson, Arthur's manservant, to keep him in line. Here, Peter Cook was essentially playing Hobson in this role, a no-nonsense, stay on top of the job butler who always knew best.
However, where Sir John Gielgud managed to inject some good natured humor to cover Hobson's absolute malice at most everything that Arthur did, Brentwood would just shout or whisper in anger or speak in a staccato like style, attempting to shoot his words of distain like bullets at his boss. Don't get me wrong; this did read as amusing some of the time, but it got rather mean spirited the longer it continued. Another difference was that Hobson absolutely had affection for Arthur, whereas Brentwood seemed to mostly think of Nan as a paycheck and a necessary nuisance.
On the other hand, there's the "When in Rome" philosophy...
It made sense for the butler on "Two's Company" to be derisive over Elaine Stritch's bawdy American ways, because they were in Great Britain. But Brentwood was in the USA, so shouldn't he have been the one to make the adjustment?
New York plays a part because the job Nan does, the neighborhood she lives in and the circumstances they get into really could only happen here.
In the end, Nan's character wasn't comic enough to make Brentwood's hot flashes and slow burns work as well. This show could have used a little Dudley Moore to up the comedy factor!
