After season 2, Hotel was even canceled in West Germany due to excessive bedhopping. Here's an article about it:
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In its first two seasons, Hotel was consistently among the most-watched shows of the week in West Germany. It took over Dynasty's timeslot when Dynasty was on hiatus, and it was expected that this arrangement would continue for years to come. However, viewer complaints about too many bed scenes were apparently too numerous, so Hill Street Blues got the timeslot (it became a ratings disaster), and Hotel was canceled. A year later, Hotel was picked up by a cable channel, and then the "Hotel War" (as the headline titled it) began because episodes from the first two seasons were suddenly being rebroadcast on the former channel while new episodes were airing on the cable channel.
I wonder what kind of series Hotel was promoted as by ABC back then, not as a soap or was it? Hotel itself isn't a soap opera to me, but the hotel guests were soap characters. It's as if each guest had their own little soap opera world at home, and of course they brought it with them to the Hotel. Even if things came to a conclusion at the hotel, the soap opera life would resume sooner or later once the hotel guest were back home.
If I had to choose between seeing Fallon as the boss of a hotel series or James Brolin with Connie Sellecca in their Hotel characters, I'd choose the latter. Fallon was simply too cheeky, and presumably, Fallon's Place wouldn't have run as long as Hotel, which was quite enjoyable. Incidentally, I found Anne Baxter much more pleasant than Bette Davis, who seemed out of place, while Anne Baxter fit perfectly into the (visual) concept of Hotel.
It's a shame, by the way,
that the elevator crash from the novel wasn't included in the TV series; that could have been a pretty good season finale with big guest stars and some of the staff members in the elevator cabin.
