Black Adder

[Mr Light]

I'm in the midst of rewatching this classic Brit Com for the first time in many years... how do you rank the series?

I always ranked them 1 > 2 > 3 > 4

I didn't rewatch the first series yet but I loved it for the on-location production values and the medieval setting and most of all Brian Blessed lol.

The second one is great for creating the typical interpretation of Edmund, his relationship with the insane queen, Stephen Fry as Melchett... the episode plots are also really clever. And Tom Baker as an insane one legged sea captain!!!

I believe the third series is considered the most popular, but it never did much for me, particularly as a kid. Hugh Laurie is just TOO over the top and stupid as the Prince, and it's the least interesting historical setting of the four series.

As a kid I didn't like the 4th series as I found it too dark and depressing, but having just seen it for the first time in a decade it was much better than I remembered. Also, I've read a lot about WWI since then

I haven't seen the Christmas Special recently but I remember it being very good, particularly for jumping around the timeline.

And the Millennium Special I also remember quite fondly, not for being laugh out loud but for bringing back all the actors and again jumping through different timelines. I do remember loving Stephen Fry as the Roman with a very short skirt though.

I found a You Tube clip of a Blackadder 5 minute sketch about the 2008 financial crisis where Edmund is a banker blaming the commonfolk like Baldrick for allowing the banks to take advantage of them. It was really clever and would have been a great premise for a proper series!

 

[Jono]

Third is my favourite and the first is my least favourite. Basically you can put it down to I prefer the Blackadder/Baldric dynamic that they created after series one.

In the middle I'd rate the two and fourth as more or less equal. If pushed I might put fourth higher because the ending of the series was by far the best ending of any of the series.

 

[Pingfah]

The second is my favourite, the first one had a snivelling Blackadder, it was a good character, but the character from s2 onwards is the Blackadder we all love, and is at his best in S2.

S4 is surely the most emotional, it really is quite touching in places, and manages to combine hilarious comedy without making light of the horrors people went through. It might be one of the most perfectly balanced pieces of comedy drama ever.

S3 is funny, but as others have said, it's a bit OTT, I still love it though. George is a total buffoon, but it has still some classic episodes, perticularly the one when they accidentally destroy the first ever Dictionary, and try to rewrite it in one night

The Christmas special was a genius reverse reworking of A Christmas Carol where Blackadder starts the episode as an idealistic community minded do-gooder, but is accidentally converted to a miserable Scrooge by visiting ghosts who had been hoping to congratulate him on his good works, but instead showed him what a fool he'd been to give everything away. Very very funny.

Back & Forth Millenium Special, well it was nice to see them all back once more, but it just wasn't too funny.

 

[Mr Light]

I'm always surprised to hear people don't like the first series. Brian Blessed, man! And it looks like a movie and not a tv set. I also liked Edmund's brother. And mother. Hell, all of them.

Mods, I'm sorry I thought I was in General TV, can someone move this? It's not SF&F

 

[Forbin]

2ND and 3RD, with the 3rd being just a pinch more fun for me. The first, though funny, leaves me flat - I like the assertive, sarcastic Edmund of 2, 3 & 4 much better than the wimpy Edmund of 1. So it's 3/2/4/1 for me.

 

[ITL]

The Christmas special was a genius reverse reworking of A Christmas Carol where Blackadder starts the episode as an idealistic community minded do-gooder, but is accidentally converted to a miserable Scrooge by visiting ghosts who had been hoping to congratulate him on his good works, but instead showed him what a fool he'd been to give everything away. Very very funny.

And it had Nurse McCready's Surgical Bruise Lotion for those who liked things a wee bit more medicinal. One of my favourite small moments.

 

[Reverend]

'Goes Forth' will always be my favourite. It's gallows humour taken to the logical extreme. Plus it taught me how shooting an ostrich could be disastrous to world affairs.

 

[Mr Light]

It's funny how some things stick with you through your whole life. To this day, I say in my head "you have my appa-low-gees" (Hugh Laurie's evil German prince in 2X6).

Oh also, I saw the first Black Adder when I was a little kid, and I remember being seriously sad when Edmund died at the end of the first series! It was such a brutal and bloody death and he was gone! I don't think I knew at the time that were would be more series.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

For me, it's 3, 2, 4, and 1 -- and there's a fair distance between 2 and 4. It's a toss-up between "Sense and Senility" and "Duel and Duality" for my favorite episode. I also really love Blackadder's Christmas Carol.

Blackadder Goes Forth, for various reasons, doesn't do a lot for me. It's funny, I laugh at it, and I enjoy it, but I think the senseless tragedy of World War I overwhelms it for me.

Blackadder Back and Forth is fun.

I think of the Johnny English movies as what Blackadder MI-5 would have been like, if it had ever been made. I squint and pretend English is really Edmund Blackadder.

 

[Trek Survivor]

"4"/Goes Forth is definitely the best for me. Then 3, then 2, then 1. So, yeah, the series definitely got BETTER for me as it went on.

Didn't much like the Christmas or Millennium specials though....

 

[Admiral2]

Best: The Black Adder!

Next: Blackadder Goes Forth!

Third: Blackadder II

Last: Blackadder III

The Christmas special made me LMAO.

My favorite line from any of the series comes in II, when Blackadder is trying to disguise Baldric as someone he beheaded by mistake, and his servants are being idiotic about it:

"Look, cretins, the bag is there to obscure Baldric's features...and many might think incidentally that that would be reason enough for him to wear it!"

 

[auntiehill]

Um, shouldn't this be in TV & Media? Doesn't really fit in the SciFi forum.

 

[Admiral2]

Um, shouldn't this be in TV & Media? Doesn't really fit in the SciFi forum.

The whole series is alternate British history, and it has time travel. It qualifies.

 

[auntiehill]

Ah. I guess that makes sense. Got it.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

The first series is my least favorite as I think I like everything about it but Blackadder. It became a much better show when the Baldric/Blackadder dynamic changed. I'd be hard pressed to rank the other three series. Each made me laugh a lot though the fourth took itself more seriously. Makes me sorry the fifth series never happened.

 

[Mr Light]

I thought I was in General TV and asked them to move it.

 

[eyeresist]

2 > 3 [a gap] > 1 > 4

2 felt the most "real" to me, as crazy as that sounds, and had the most good lines.
"Perhaps some sort of hat would be in order?"
" 'Yes, it is', not 'That it be'."
"... Whereas Nursie is a sad, insane old woman with an udder fixation."

3 - I missed Percy, who would have made this series a bit less shouty.
"Sausage time!"
"Disease and deprivation stalk the land like ... two giant stalking things."

1 - Blackadder is obviously not nearly as good as the later incarnation, but there are some interesting bits.
"What a little turd."

4 felt like they had run out of jokes and were rerunning the old ones.
"Baaaaah!"

 

[EmoBorg]

I did notice that the Black Adder character got smarter progressively from season 1 till season 4 while his social status went downhill.

Season 1 - Prince

Season 2 - Nobleman

Season 3 - Royal Butler

Season 4 - Army Officer

 

[Mr Light]

Surely Army Officer outranks butler? He was a servant.

BTW I'm rewatching the first series now and it's great! Brian Blessed is so insanely hilarious in every single second. All the supporting characters are great. And the episode plot lines are much more interesting than in the other series. I just regret that we never saw a continuation of the first episode with Henry Tudor coming back. Oh, and I also loved the actor who played Richard III. He was actually incredibly creepy as a ghost.

 

[EmoBorg]

Surely Army Officer outranks butler? He was a servant.

I think a royal Butler to the Prince of Wales outranks an Infantry Captain.