Black Adder (TV Series) (DVD)

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"I have a cunning plan, m'lord."

As I've mentioned time and again, comedy is a funny thing. What appeals to one person, what knocks him out with laughter, may leave another person cold. I have friends who think "Blackadder" is the funniest television show they've ever seen; I have other friends who absolutely can't stand the thing. For me, the four BBC seasons of "Blackadder" (or "The Black Adder" as we know the character from the first season) are among the most humorous programs ever to grace the airwaves. So it's a delight to find that BBC Video have remastered the twenty-four primary episodes and included almost all of the special programs, interviews, commentaries, and documentaries ever made, many of them brand new, in this six-disc, 2009 "Ultimate Edition" box set.

Series star and co-writer Rowen Atkinson is among the few actors to have created not one but two well-loved yet completely opposite television characters: four generations of Edmund Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Yes, it's that Rowen Atkinson, whose later Mr. Bean not only conquered television but became a major big-screen movie star. Yet the characters and comedy styles of "Blackadder" and "Mr. Bean" couldn't be more different. Where "Bean" is virtually a silent comedy, with Atkinson harking back to the likes of Chaplin and Keaton and almost never uttering a word, "Blackadder" relies on verbal wit above all. It's Edmund Blackadder's acerbic tongue and continual put-downs that make the programs funny. Indeed, it is Atkinson's demonstrated ability to excel in both physical and spoken humor that always made me hope he would replace Peter Sellers in the role of Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Instead, Hollywood went with Steve Martin, totally unsuited for "The Pink Panther" movies. Yet Martin attracted filmgoers despite his inappropriateness. What do I know?

"The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own satanic herd."

Part of the "Blackadder" appeal is its unique approach to the subject matter. Whereas most sitcoms simply repeat the same formula year after year with the same characters, Atkinson decided that each of the four years of the series would see a new generation of Blackadder. Season one, which aired in 1983, features the first in the line of characters who would continue throughout the years. He's Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, and the year is 1485 on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth Field. King Richard III (Peter Cook) is about to lead the English army against the forces of his rival, Henry Tudor. It's interesting that the series would begin and end with a war.

In this version of the story, Edmund accidentally (and with no one watching) lops off Richard's head, inadvertently making his bellowing, boisterous father (Brian Blessed) the new king and Edmund a prince. The thing is, Edmond's father doesn't know Edmund is alive; he keeps asking who that strange little man is at dinner, and Edmond's brother, Harry (Robert East), has to remind his father that it's his youngest son, Edmund.

It's in season one that we also meet two characters who will become running co-stars in the series: Tony Robinson as Baldrick, Edmund's dim-witted servant, and Tim McInnerny as Percy, Edmund's equally dim-witted friend and fellow nobleman. They may be idiots but they are completely delightful idiots, with Baldrick the unending butt of Black Adder's barbs and boots. It's also here that Edmund, a weaselly little wimp, tries to make himself more significant by donning the nickname "The Black Adder," although it takes him a while for him to get it right. At first, he thinks the "The Black Vegetable" might do the trick.

"Shut up, Balders. You'd laugh at a Shakespeare comedy."

With the second season, "Black-Adder II," following several years later in 1986, we find a descendent of Prince Edmund living in sixteenth-century London, this time as Lord Black-Adder. He's no longer a prince, however; he's an impoverished noble who, luckily, is still on good terms with the court, an especial favorite of a young, airheaded Queen Elizabeth I (Miranda Richardson). We also see a greater transformation in this Black-Adder than in any other generation: From a brainless, witless wimp with a silly haircut and an even sillier hat, the sixteen-century Lord Black-Adder has developed into a sophisticated, self-confident, acid-tongued rogue, with a dashing appearance.

One of Baldrick's descendents, also named Baldrick (Robinson throughout), continues to wait on Edmond and take his usual abuse. And a descendent of Percy (McInnerny) continues to be his friend, heaven knows why. Stephen Fry joins the cast as the pompous Lord Melchett, counselor to the Queen, and Patsy Byrne is the Queen's goofy nursemaid, Nursie. In an occasional role, Rik Mayall plays the flashy and sexy hero Lord Flasheart, who can make a woman pregnant by looking at her.

"Something wrong, Mr. B?"
"Oh, something's always wrong, Balders.... The fact that I'm not a millionaire aristocrat, with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino, is a constant niggle."

Season three, "BlackAdder the Third," aired in 1987, finds the latest Mr. Edmund BlackAdder an advisor to the Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie) in the late eighteenth century. Alas, the BlackAdders have lost their title altogether by this time, and Edmund must do what he can to swindle his block-headed employer out of everything he can get. As the first episode opens, BlackAdder is stealing the Prince's socks and selling them. The Prince laments his missing footwear, saying "Socks are like sex: Tons of it about, and I never seem to get any."

News: We have never heard Baldrick's first name mentioned before because he's so dense he doesn't know what it is. When BlackAdder asks him about it, he says "It might be 'Sod Off,'" because that's what his friends used to call him; they'd say "Sod off, Baldrick."

Stephen Fry plays the Duke of Wellington, and various of the regulars come and go.