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Tim McInnerny Interview - Blackadder Goes Forth & Michael Gove

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Tim McInnerny Interview - Blackadder Goes Forth & Michael Gove

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Sir Tony Robinson's response to Michael Gove's attack on the show.

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Blackadder Actor: "Michael Gove has made a very silly mistake"

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Blackadder star Sir Tony Robinson has defended the comedy's portrayal of World War One after the Education Secretary accused it of belittling Britain. Michael Gove criticised the manner in which historians and TV programmes have depicted the conflict, saying he believed it was in fact a "just war" against the German elite.

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Industrial Context, the uk channel Gold re-airing the show.

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Meet the most deliciously evil comic characters ever - Rowan Atkinson's Edmund Blackadder. Watch it on Gold.

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Michael Gove's article on 'left wing' ideologies on the first world war being represented within Blackadder.

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Education Secretary says war is represented as a 'misbegotten shambles'

But he claims that it was in fact a 'just war' to combat German aggression

Left-wing myths about the First World War peddled by Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame, Michael Gove says today.

The Education Secretary criticises historians and TV programmes that denigrate patriotism and courage by depicting the war as a 'misbegotten shambles'.

As Britain prepares to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the war, Mr Gove claims only undergraduate cynics would say the soldiers were foolish to fight.

In an article for the Daily Mail, Mr Gove says he has little time for the view of the Department for Culture and the Foreign Office that the commemorations should not lay fault at Germany's door.

The Education Secretary says the conflict was a 'just war' to combat aggression by a German elite bent on domination.

'The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war,' he says. 'The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.'

Britain has pledged £50million in public money to mark the event, with school trips to battlefields and ceremonies planned over four years. The French government has also embraced the centenary, planning 1,500 events across the country. But there are few plans for events in Germany itself.

Mr Gove, who has rewritten the school history curriculum to give pupils a better grasp of the broad sweep of British history, reserves his greatest scorn for those who have sought to depict the soldiers as lions led by donkeys.

He says: 'The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best.

'But it's important that we don't succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict in the last 70 or so years.

'The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.'

Mr Gove turns his fire on 'Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths by attacking Britain's role in the conflict'.

He singles out Richard Evans, regius professor of history at Cambridge University, who has said those who enlisted in 1914 were wrong to think they were fighting to defend freedom.

Mr Gove writes: 'Richard Evans may hold a professorship, but these arguments, like the interpretations of Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder, are more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate.'

The Education Secretary says it is time to listen to historians such as Margaret Macmillan who has 'demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order'.

He also cites the work of Professor Gary Sheffield, who has reassessed the damaged reputation of British commander Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.

Blackadder Goes Forth cast Rowan Atkinson in the title role as a captain in the trenches of Flanders during 1917.

It focused largely on his cowardly attempts to avoid certain death through going 'over the top' to engage the enemy.

Under the misguided leadership of a general played by Stephen Fry, and with little help from the hapless Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson) plus a twittish ex-public schoolboy played by Hugh Laurie, it chronicles his increasingly gutless efforts to dodge the action or escape the trenches.

The series was written by Four Weddings and Bridget Jones creator Richard Curtis in partnership with Left-wing comic Ben Elton.

It is still shown in schools to help children learn about the war.

By MICHAEL GOVE, Education Secretary

The past has never had a better future. Because history is enjoying a renaissance in Britain. After years in which the study of history was declining in our schools, the numbers of young people showing an appetite for learning about the past, and a curiosity about our nation's story, is growing once more.

As a Government, we've done everything we can to support this restoration. We've changed how schools are judged, and our new measure of academic success for schools and pupils, the English baccalaureate, rewards those who study history at GCSE.

And the changes we've made to the history curriculum have been welcomed by top academics as a way to give all children a proper rounded understanding of our country's past and its place in the world.

That understanding has never been needed more. Because the challenges we face today - great power rivalry, migrant populations on the move, rapid social upheaval, growing global economic interdependence, massive technological change and fragile confidence in political elites - are all challenges our forebears faced.

Indeed, these particular forces were especially powerful one hundred years ago - on the eve of the First World War. Which is why it is so important that we commemorate, and learn from, that conflict in the right way in the next four years.

The Government wants to give young people from every community the chance to learn about the heroism, and sacrifice, of our great-grandparents, which is why we are organising visits to the battlefields of the Western Front.

The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best. But even as we recall that loss and commemorate the bravery of those who fought, it's important that we don't succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict.

Our understanding of the war has been overlaid by misunderstandings, and misrepresentations which reflect an, at best, ambiguous attitude to this country and, at worst, an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage.

The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day there are Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths.

Professor Sir Richard Evans, the Cambridge historian and Guardian writer, has criticised those who fought, arguing, 'the men who enlisted in 1914 may have thought they were fighting for civilisation, for a better world, a war to end all wars, a war to defend freedom: they were wrong'.

And he has attacked the very idea of honouring their sacrifice as an exercise in 'narrow tub-thumping jingoism'. These arguments are more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate.

The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war. Nigel Biggar, regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, laid out the ethical case for our involvement in a superb essay in September's Standpoint magazine.

The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.

And the war was also seen by participants as a noble cause. Historians have skilfully demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order.
Other historians have gone even further in challenging some prevailing myths.

Generals who were excoriated for their bloody folly have now, after proper study, been re-assessed.

Douglas Haig, held up as a crude butcher, has been seen in a new light thanks to Professor Gary Sheffield, of Wolverhampton University, who depicts him as a patriotic leader grappling honestly with the new complexities of industrial warfare.

Even the battle of the Somme, once considered the epitome of military futility, has now been analysed in depth by the military historian William Philpott and recast as a precursor of allied victory.

There is, of course, no unchallenged consensus. That is why it matters that we encourage an open debate on the war and its significance.

But it is important to recognise that many of the new analyses emerging challenge existing Left-wing versions of the past designed to belittle Britain and its leaders.

Instead, they help us to understand that, for all our mistakes as a nation, Britain's role in the world has also been marked by nobility and courage.

Indeed, the more we reflect on every aspect of the war, the more cause there is for us to appreciate what we owe to our forebears and their traditions.

But whatever each of us takes from these acts of remembrance and hours of debate it is always worth remembering that the freedom to draw our own conclusions about this conflict is a direct consequence of the bravery of men and women who fought for, and believed in, Britain's special tradition of liberty.

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Michael Gove blasts 'Blackadder myths' about the First World War

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Education Secretary says war is represented as a 'misbegotten shambles' But he claims that it was in fact a 'just war' to combat German aggression Left-wing myths about the First World War peddled by Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame, Michael Gove says today.

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Article reviewing the historical accuracy of the show.

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As fans of Blackadder celebrate the 30th anniversary of the comedy's first broadcast, its stars Tony Robinson and Rowan Atkinson are recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Its fast-and-loose attitude to real events and characters is part of the appeal, but how close is any of it to real history?

Think of the Prince Regent, later George IV, and what images flood your mind?

For anyone who has seen Blackadder it's hard not to think of a bewigged Hugh Laurie shouting "tally ho".

A World War I general? Does Stephen Fry's General Melchett lamenting the death of Speckled Jim come to mind?

The four series of Blackadder are replete with history.

"History was my big subject at school," says producer John Lloyd.

"[Writer] Richard [Curtis] and I had curiously read the same book called Looking at History by RJ Unstead. It said things like: 'In the middle ages women wore wimples'."

Ben Elton [writer from the second series on], being the nephew of eminent Tudor expert GR Elton, also brought a hefty dose of historical enthusiasm.

The pilot episode, never broadcast, was very different to the Blackadder people know today.

"It had a feeling of Game of Thrones, set in an indeterminate period of history, not rooted in real events," says Lloyd.

Blackadder - the series

The Black Adder (1983) - set in the late 15th Century, Edmund, unloved second son of Richard IV, plots feebly to become king

Blackadder II (1986) - Tudor courtier Edmund, Lord Blackadder tries to win the capricious favour of Elizabeth I

Blackadder The Third (1987) - It's the 1700s, and Blackadder is insolent butler to the future George IV (or "Prince Fathead" as he calls him)

Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) - Captain Blackadder (pictured) is serving in the trenches in WWI and trying his best to avoid being killed

"I said we have got to tell people where this is set."

Thus The Black Adder was set in 1485. In this world, Richard III is succeeded by (the fictional) Richard IV, who is later written out of history by (the real) Henry VII.

But the later series come closer and closer to reality. Blackadder II revolves around a childish and intensely capricious Elizabeth I (Miranda Richardson). Blackadder The Third tackles the Regency period with a hapless Prince George.

Blackadder Goes Forth is set mainly in a WWI trench. "In Blackadder Goes Forth they had no option," says Jem Roberts, author of The True History of the Blackadder.

"They had run out of licence to be completely anarchic. There was so little they could get away with in 1989. Lots of people who had fought in the trenches were still alive."

The end result of the four series can be viewed as a kind of satire of school history books and the weird mishmash of fact and exaggeration that is left in many people's heads a couple of decades after their last history lesson.

The costumes were always accurately researched, says Lloyd, and while the dialogue had to be anachronistic to be funny, there were occasional bouts of fact-checking.

A line from the first series was to be: "I curse you, and hope that something slightly unpleasant happens to you, like a potato falling on your head."

As Walter Raleigh was yet to deliver the potato to England this was changed in the final draft to "onion", says Lloyd.

And it's pleasing that more than two decades after the last series finished, it's still used to enthuse children about history, he says.

Here are three bits of history from the series put under the microscope:

The Prince Regent
Blackadder portrayal: Drunken, philandering idiot of spectacularly limited grace and intelligence. Reality: Unfaithful and a drinker, but a noted patron of the arts with no reputation for stupidity.
The Prince Regent of Blackadder the Third has only three life priorities - sleeping in, carousing and seeking out the company of as many ladies as possible.

His limited intellect is spelt out by Blackadder in the following exchange:

When the Prince Regent became George IV he was known to dress up as a butler when guests came to his house, echoing Blackadder
Jem Roberts

Prince George: Someone said I had the wit and intellect of a donkey.

Blackadder: Oh, an absurd suggestion sir, unless it was a particularly stupid donkey.

The Regent that Blackadder has to deal with can be relied on to do the foolish thing - whether it be ennobling Baldrick or confusing a play with real life.

The real prince - who acted as regent for his mentally ill father, George III, and was later crowned George IV - certainly was a philanderer, both before and after his unhappy marriage to Caroline of Brunswick.

"He had a miserable childhood without love," says Tom Ambrose, author of Prinny and His Pals.

"His philandering was usually with very portly ladies - mother figures. He was looking for love and security."

George's appetite for drink and tendency to spend money was also well known at the time.

More from the Magazine

George III is well known in children's history books for being the "mad king who lost America".

More recently, historians have put his "madness" down to the disorder called porphyria. However, new research suggests that George III actually was mentally ill.
Was George III a manic depressive? (April 2013)
The day after his funeral, in July 1830, the Times was happy to label him an "inveterate voluptuary".

It said: "Nothing more remains to be said or done about George IV but to pay - as pay we must - for his profusion; and to turn his bad example to some account, by tying up the hands of those who come after him, in what concerns the public money."

But whatever his spendthrift bent, he was no idiot, says Lord Baker, a fan of Blackadder and author of George IV: A Life in Caricature.

"When it comes to the Prince Regent he was presented as a dandified oaf - usually drunk and stupid. That's pretty unfair to poor old George IV."

Instead, we might recognise his patronage of architect John Nash, his role in the reshaping of London and his major contribution to the royal collection of art.

"He was the greatest town planner - everything from Regents Park to the Nash terraces, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, the Mall. He totally remodelled Windsor Castle," says Lord Baker.

"He was a tremendous patron of the arts. He was also fat and a dandy and drank a lot."

And at least one episode in Blackadder the Third is absolutely true to reality, says Jem Roberts.

"When the Prince Regent became George IV he was known to dress up as a butler when guests came to his house, echoing Blackadder."

Field Marshal Douglas Haig and WWI generals
Blackadder portrayal: Haig is callous, and fictional General Melchett is an unthinking upper class buffoon. Reality: Years of vigorous academic debate, but revisionist view of Haig now taken by many.
In Blackadder Goes Forth, the eponymous infantry captain sums up his field marshal's strategic masterplan with the line:

"Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin."

In the final episode, on the phone to Blackadder, Haig is seen casually knocking over model soldiers on a mock-up battlefield and sweeping them up with a brush and pan.

We've been sitting here since Christmas 1914, during which time millions of men have died, and we've advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping
Blackadder Goes Forth

The visual allusion to his callousness is obvious.

It's in the tradition of Alan Clark's book The Donkeys, which follows on from critics like strategist and military historian Basil Liddell Hart and former Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

In his diary, Hart wrote that Haig was "a man of supreme egoism and utter lack of scruple - who, to his overweening ambition, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men".

Haig's tactics were characterised by critics as reliant on massive bombardment and frontal assaults with little care for the casualties that resulted, such as on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

But there has been a wave of revisionist history about Haig in recent years.

"The real Field Marshal Haig was certainly not a callous man," says Gary Sheffield, author of The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army.

"He was commanding the largest British army ever. Whatever he did you ended up with lots and lots of casualties.

"In the end he was a successful general. His record was no worse than most other commanders and rather better than many of them."

The other general in Blackadder Goes Forth is even more cartoonish. Known for his catchphrase "Baaaaaah!", Gen Melchett with his exaggerated public school ethos and pitiful intelligence represents another side of the post-WWI criticism.

"As far as the portrayal of Haig, Geoffrey Palmer plays Haig, but in effect Melchett is an amalgam of Haig and John French and the other generals so Haig appears twice," says Sheffield.

But Haig and his fellow WWI generals were operating in a period unique in military history, he argues. Armies had grown so big that generals could no longer cover their whole extent in person, while the radio technology that made manipulating large armies in WWII possible was yet to be invented.

Haig and the other generals learned lessons which led to the sweeping victories of 1918.

Sheffield is still a fan of Blackadder and, having given lectures alongside John Lloyd, enjoys using it as a starting point when tackling preconceptions about Haig and the other generals.

"It is a very good and clever satire not just of WWI but also the popular perception of WWI.

"The problem is that it misses out 1918. The very final scene is set in 1917. It doesn't deal with the victory."

Of course, the debate over Haig is still very much live and there will be plenty who dispute the revisionist view vehemently.

But he certainly wasn't a Melchett-esque dolt.

"Whatever else he might have been he clearly wasn't stupid," says Sheffield. "Haig must not be judged solely on his role as a battlefield commander. He reorganised the Army and trained the Army. To get a true picture we need to see him in the round."

Richard III
Blackadder portrayal: Jovial and pleasant, as played by Peter Cook. Reality: Recent excavation led to renewed interest in Richard's reputation and how it was besmirched by the Tudors. Still not cleared of murder of Princes in the Tower.
"At the very, very start of the entire Blackadder saga, Peter Cook plays Richard III as a jolly king, loving his nephews," says Roberts, who believes the often less well-regarded first series is still a classic.

When people think of Richard III, the portrayal from Shakespeare of a hunchbacked Machiavellian persists. Everyone knows that the Princes in the Tower were killed by Richard III.

But, as anyone from the Richard III Society might ask, what is the concrete evidence against him?

The historical revising of his reign has been going on for much of the 20th Century and reached its zenith in the recent tussle for the right to bury his body. Many more people are now familiar with the Tudor attempt to blacken Richard's name.

"Who knew in 2013, Henry VII would be seen as a liar and a propagandist?" says Roberts.

And there is something fundamentally comic about the fact that Richard's body had to be excavated from a car park in Leicester.

"It echoes Blackadder rather brilliantly," notes Lloyd.
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How accurately does Blackadder reflect history? - BBC News

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As fans of Blackadder celebrate the 30th anniversary of the comedy's first broadcast, its stars Tony Robinson and Rowan Atkinson are recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Its fast-and-loose attitude to real events and characters is part of the appeal, but how close is any of it to real history?

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A look back on the series, from beginning to end of production.

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Tony Robinson, Tim McInnerny and Rowan Atkinson in The Black Adder (BBC)

The big joke about The Black Adder back at Television Centre was that it was the show that looked like a million dollars - and cost a million pounds (these being the days when the pound had clout). "It took months to edit," Lloyd says. "I think one of the actors died, we took so long to edit it. We had to do retakes the whole time." Although a second series was commissioned - despite mixed reviews - the arrival of Michael Grade as BBC One controller in 1984 spelt the bloody axe. He took one look at the cost and the ratings (not great), and cancelled the show.

The cavalry had arrived, though, in the shape of Ben Elton - nephew, it's worth noting, of the venerated Tudor historian GR Elton. Taking over as joint scriptwriter, his whizzo idea was to get out of the boggy, lice-ridden misery of the Middle Ages and cut a sexier, punkier dash in the Elizabethan era.

It was a decision that, at a stroke, unlocked the show's full potential for rapier wit, silly costumes, light-of-touch satire and richly detailed characterisation built around the intricacies and hypocrisies of class and power. One frantic weekend spent lopping off anything in the scripts that would require more than a minimal budget, one concerted plea for a reprieve, and the rest is the stuff of golden memories, reissued DVDs and repeats until doomsday.

Blackadder II begat Blackadder the Third - set in the Regency period - which begat Blackadder Goes Forth, bringing things from the mire and gore of the Middle Ages to the mud and blood of the First World War trenches. Lavish location shoots had given way to a studio set-up, with the scripts all the tighter and better for it. Having started out trying to subvert the traditional sitcom, the team - the talent of which no subsequent generation has yet matched - produced comedy's answer to a cathedral, robust and built to last.

"We bit off more than we could chew": Blackadder producer John Lloyd (RII SCHROER)

In explaining Blackadder's enduring power, aside from the fashion-proof nature of its historical settings, we should point to its unique combination of guile and guilelessness, of perfectionism and on-the-fly invention. In artistic terms, it's Edmund and Baldrick rolled into one.

In a neat final twist of behind-the-scenes irony, the most hallowed moment of the series came about by accident rather than design. The haunting last scene of the final series shows Blackadder and his not so merry men - Tony Robinson's hangdog Private Baldrick, Hugh Laurie's asinine but suddenly anxious Lieutenant George and Tim McInnerny's ever-twitchy Captain Darling - getting felled by machine-gun fire as they go over the top.

Time itself seems to slow to a standstill - and past laughter turns into a silent act of remembrance punctuated only by birdsong. Having begun on a parodic Shakespearean note in the very first episode - with a rewrite of Richard III, performed by Peter Cook - the magnum opus arrives at a place as poignant as anything in the Histories.

The series's knowing send-up of a simplistic Ladybird view of English history grows organically into a humble indictment, in grim monochrome fading into the blood-red of a poppy field, of the supposedly educated few whose idiocy led to such senseless slaughter.

Those closing moments were the result of happenstance. The final take was a rushed, botched job, with no time or inclination for another go. It was only in the editing suite that the possibilities of snatching artistic victory from the jaws of a deadly shambles dawned. Having started out biting off more than they could chew, they reached the apotheosis of "less is more".

"Suddenly we were all standing there in awe," Lloyd remembers. "My only contribution was to say 'We've touched something here. Quite by accident we've done something extraordinary. It would be impertinent to put credits on this. We will take them off.'" And that's what they did.

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Tony Robinson, Tim McInnerny and Rowan Atkinson in The Black Adder (BBC) The big joke about The Black Adder back at Television Centre was that it was the show that looked like a million dollars - and cost a million pounds (these being the days when the pound had clout).

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Fan site in which several authors give their reviews of the slightly solemn finale.

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Welcome to the TV Roundtable, where some of TV Club's writers tackle episodes that all deal with a central theme. Now through March: some of our favorite episodes of all time. Blackadder Goes Forth*Each season of what we collectively call Blackadder had a different title, so although this is the fourth season of the popular show, it is just season one of Blackadder Goes Forth. It's confusing. In which the boys go over the top... , "Goodbyeee" (season one, episode six; originally aired 11/2/1989)*
David Sims: I don't know how many times I've seen this episode of Blackadder. A couple dozen, probably? Growing up in England, in high school the rule pretty much was, if your teacher was sick, they'd just put Blackadder on and tell you to watch quietly. It's about British history, so it's at least vaguely relevant, right? Over the course of six years (1983 to 1989), Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, and Rowan Atkinson created four time-hopping seasons of this show, covering (in order), the Middle Ages, Elizabethan England, the Regency, and World War I. Each was more sophisticated and cynical than the last, and each featured Atkinson as the perennially sarcastic schemer Blackadder with Tony Robinson as his dumb and filthy sidekick, Baldrick.

The whole series has a special place in my heart, but Blackadder Goes Forth is probably the most impressive of the lot, and its finale, "Goodbyeee," is forever seared on my mind. While the sitcom always had a snarky, clever edge to its examination of class hypocrisies, it never got quite this dark. But really, what other way is there to conclude a story about the trench warfare of World War I, where thousands of Brits (and Germans, and many others) ran at each other's machine-gun lines for no particularly good reason other than they were told to do it?

For any American who's never sampled the show, Blackadder must be a particularly surprising experience. There's Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) as the ridiculously optimistic Lieutenant George, a dead-on skewering of the Britain's Oxford-educated ruling class who merrily signed up for war in the millions because everyone else was doing it. Stephen Fry, as General Melchett, is the same type, one generation older and crazier and cheerfully ordering his men to their doom. And while most people around the world know Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean, Blackadder is an equally iconic role for him.

He's the easiest and best character to identify with in Blackadder Goes Forth, where his utterly selfish scheming makes the most sense to us. In other seasons, Blackadder sought personal gain. In Forth, he's looking to survive, aware-unlike seemingly everyone else-that any kind of significant military action will get him killed.

Except for Captain Darling (Tim McInnerny), of course. Mocked throughout the show as a sniveling coward, his name a politically incorrect pun onto itself, Darling has done exactly what Blackadder might seek: guaranteed his own survival by serving as Melchett's lickspittle. But he is doomed with the rest of them by the end of the episode-though granted a modicum of respect by his adversary Blackadder as one of the boys on the front line.

Blackadder is very much a British sitcom made before 1992. "Goodbyeee" is its darkest episode, but even it is loaded with sarcastic quips, silly puns, and harebrained schemes, which you would expect from any of the series' episodes. Its astonishing achievement is balancing that expected silliness with genuine pathos and remarkably acrid commentary on the nation's proud history; in that way, it feels like an achievement even today, 25 years after it left the air.

Brandon Nowalk: Oh my God, David. I just finished the episode and I have goosebumps. (Or goose pimples or horseflesh or whatever y'all call it.) Blackadder had been on my list of stuff to watch eventually-categorized, thanks to some lesser brushes with Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English) and Richard Curtis (Love, Actually- come at me, Sonia), closer to stuff I should see out of obligation more than expected pleasure. I had no idea it would be this good, this funny and cynical and moving. The last time I felt like this was during . And before that, Generation Kill.

It's obvious from the start. I don't know if you can always tell something will be good or bad from the get-go, but that first impression isn't just an impression. You can see the acting-Atkinson's droll expectation and Laurie's youthful enthusiasm. You can hear the writing and get a sense of the style-savoring impeccable imagery like, "We've advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping." You can see the camera and editing-every little move and cut adding to the lively stage-comedy feel. You can see the art design-the richness and texture of the sets and costumes and props. It looks like sketch comedy-even with Atkinson in a slick in the pouring rain against a wall of sandbags crowned in barbed wire and everything colored like mud-but it's also already planting the seeds that this is serious, that there are stakes to these characters' lives. The big joke is also a statement.

So much modern television comedy just slathers on what the kids are calling the feels, as if it's not enough to be funny. But "Goodbyeee" hits just right. First of all, a suicidal charge that'll mean not romantic disappointment or an unhappy birthday but the death of 80 percent of the characters is an awfully good reason to forsake the funnies for the feels. And when Blackadder does go in for the kill, so to speak, it has the dignity not to wallow. Did anyone cry watching this? I didn't even begin to get watery. Yet I daresay this is one of the most moving episodes of TV I'll see all year.

The essential element is that it's hilarious through two acts: Hugh Laurie mugging up a storm, the ostrich that started WWI, the running gag about getting low on supplies, culminating in that sudden spit-take in what looked until that moment like negative space. It's got wordplay, it's got sight gags, it's got its fair share of dim bulbs. George's gung-ho eagerness to kill himself for duty lays a foundation for what's to come but plays as pure comedy. Blackadder understands death, so we worry about him. But I'm not convinced George really understands how death works, at least not until the end. So for most of the episode it's just a pitch-black joke, the guy who just can't wait to die. But by the time he gets his chance, it turns out he's not so eager.

For some reason I was expecting a jokier ending, an absurdist "oh, well" or something. So the pivotal scene where Darling gets dismissed by Melchett came as a total surprise. There's no weaseling out of consequences here as might happen in a sitcom. Power knows exactly what the powerless is going to say anyway, don't you worry your little head. The poor guy is kneeling, cradled in the general's arms, when all of a sudden the lights shine up the stage and the overpowering shadow of a soldier oozes across the carpet to take Darling to the front lines. Suddenly we go from this relatively low-key sketch comedy to this dramatic, expressionist theater. From this point on, there is no escape, not even for the cunning Blackadder.

I don't want to take up all the space before everyone's had a chance to chime in, but, wow, did "Goodbyeee" floor me. Was anyone else as moved as I was?

Pilot Viruet: Blackadder has also been on my to-watch list for a while now (along with a ton of British programs that I keep unfairly neglecting), so I'm glad that you chose this, David, because I'm going to watch the entire series this week. I was hesitant going in-not because I worried that I wouldn't like it (I'm a fan of the cast and I'm fascinated by both the premise and the anthology format) but I worried that, because it's a series finale, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it much sans context. But I was wrong! I ended up loving it: the running jokes, the occasional alliterative dialogue (everything flowed so well!), the silly historical mix-ups, the acting (though I grew up watching an awful lot of Mr. Bean, so it's always odd to hear Rowan Atkinson talk), and, of course, the sad preoccupation with death that kept creeping up alongside the humor. It didn't matter that I hadn't seen anything else of Blackadder, because everything still clicked.

It didn't take long for me to know that I was going to love this show. It's cemented by that very early scene when George is happily talking about the day he enlisted-a mixture of sweet nostalgia and funny anecdotes-that segues into him realizing that the rest of his buddies have died already. George's transition from funny to sad is seamless, as is his immediate return to being cheerful. I think that's why I liked "Goodbyeee" so much. There is an overwhelming sense of death and doom lingering above the entire thing, but it never overtakes the jokes, nor does it feel like a forced balancing act. Instead, they complement each other. There are laughs within the phone conversation, but they make that casually callous action of sweeping away toy soldiers even more chilling.

I don't know how exactly I was expecting this episode to end-but I definitely wasn't expecting that. "Goodbyeee" sure did go straight for the gut-punch. Still, although it was unexpected, it wasn't jarring. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other television show that could pull something like this off. It was an odd rollercoaster feeling. I went from laughing out loud for about 25 minutes straight to being suddenly shocked into silence, from the scene where George admits that he's scared and doesn't want to die. Oh, and those few seconds when some of the guys naïvely think that the war has ended? It's a killer.

The entire last scene is a killer, especially with the use of slow motion-and yes, Brandon, I was moved. (I didn't cry either, though, which is weird because I'm known for crying at sitcom episodes. Dramas rarely move me, but some good jokes will inexplicably wreck me.) It was very affecting, it was beautiful and devastating, but mostly I just can't get over how funny everything else was. I can't wait to watch from the beginning.

Sonia Saraiya: Unlike Pilot and Brandon, I had the unique opportunity to hear this episode summarized by David in person a few weeks ago (don't worry, Pilot, I drank when he mentioned growing up in Britain). I don't think I'd ever quite realized that Blackadder spanned different eras-but it certainly explained a stray episode I once caught where Hugh Laurie was a petulant prince in a foppish wig ( Blackadder The Third, as it happens). So I knew what was coming-and yet the episode totally destroyed me, as it sounds like it destroyed all of us. It's only because David said, in his spirited summary, "And then they all just... fucking die," that I am even able to accept that they all really did die, instead of just fading away to black in the hazy, sanitized death that television offers us. Of course, the show makes it very clear they all die. I was just hoping against hope.

Indeed, what's most devastating for me in this episode is hope: Hope is what Darling has right before he's sent to the front lines, when he beseeches Melchett to let him go. Hope is what Baldrick has with his ridiculous schemes. Hope is even what grumpy Blackadder has, in the last moments, as he makes the call to the dismissive field marshal. Out of an episode with many heartbreaking moments, one of the most heartbreaking is when Blackadder, not unkindly, tells Baldrick to save his last plot for escape until "later." The message I saw is that hope is the last thing to go, when you're standing at the edge of your death, but not taking it from someone is a great act of kindness. (And the show's class politics comes out strong there, too: Melchett has no qualms taking away someone's hope, and neither does the old field marshal. Blackadder maintains his dignity, I suppose, by not taking away Baldrick's.)

There's so little I could say here that the episode does not say better itself: "Goodbyeee" does not stint on social commentary or precise deconstruction of character. It is, itself, a critique, which makes it a bit harder to write about. It's critiquing something really big, i.e., the entire structure of our lives, but it's still a critique-and a scathing one, at that. And the episode is very deft with shifting from what is cutting satire to moving pathos and back again without ever feeling like it has lost its train of thought. This is an episode that knows exactly what it's doing.

Brandon, I've been reading some of your thoughts on Twitter about how sitcoms have swung away from snark and toward pathos-you said recently that lately it seems like sitcoms are more likely to make you cry than laugh (I am paraphrasing badly). You got into this a little before, but I'm curious how this episode fits into your thinking about this. I agree-sitcoms have gotten more "dramatic," for lack of a better word. There is suddenly a lot of sincerity and humanity in the genre. And while those things are important, it also feels a little blithe to me, and perhaps to you all as well. Blackadder is refreshing in that light-because hey, the world is pretty shitty. What's powerful about sincerity and humanity is exercising that in the face of a world still sends boys into battle because some other guy in a room decided it was a good idea. And let's not get carried away with our own goodness, either- Blackadder is not a story about doing the right thing, it's about doing what you need to do to survive. As touching as Blackadder's expressions of kindness are in the episode-tolerating Baldrick, listening to George's bravado and fear, and welcoming Darling into the group-I also got the impression that he is merely doing what he must do to live with himself, even if that life is going to last for just a few more minutes.

David, what's your far more experienced take on Stephen Fry's Melchett? Is he evil, or just stupid? His scene when he sends Darling to the front was one of the more excruciating to watch-when the episode turns from something darkly funny to something that is just dark, with moments of humor to lighten the load. (Which is to say, perhaps it is a metaphor for life.)

BN: Sonia, I think calling them "thoughts" is an overstatement, but that's the gist. Why so serious, sitcoms? The subject's too big for this space, but Blackadder is quite a model for pathos in comedy. It works on me the same way The Thick Of It does. It's straight-faced machine-gun comedy about a very serious subject, and it plays me like a fiddle. The moment I stop laughing, the moment the jokes let up, I feel the gravity. At the end of "Goodbyeee" I wasn't crying, and I didn't want to. I was saying, "Oh my God." Which is just as valuable a reaction as laughing or crying or throwing your remote at the TV to keep another damn sitcom from "getting real" for a moment.

The Thick Of It is a thematic cousin, too. The gravity in both comes from the way institutions trample their members. George signed up hoping to do some good. So did Hugh Abbott. But when the laughs stop coming, they're both just fodder for the machine. In politics, that means you get to stick around as long as you're keeping the wheels turning (or more accurately, as long as you're not keeping them from turning). In war, that means you get to die. Now that's moving and honest and relevant and everything else people say about sappy sitcoms.

Thanks to Stephen Fry's General Melchett, Blackadder Goes Forth is even darker than The Thick Of It, though the threat of death helps. See, Malcolm Tucker will sack an MP like it's nothing, but when push comes to shove, he's a human. What he's not is the highest authority. There doesn't seem to be anybody above Melchett. And not only will he send you to your death, but he'll smile doing it. And he'll never even imagine that he was wrong.

After Melchett s him, Blackadder checks in with his men, who are suddenly pretty serious after all. George confesses to not wanting to die. Next Blackadder asks, "How are you feeling, Darling?" and I don't know why but I laughed loud enough for the neighborhood. Even at the show's heaviest, it's still hilarious. "Don't forget your stick, Lieutenant." "Rather, sir. Wouldn't want to face a machine gun without this."

SS: I literally thought British soldiers just called each other "darling" until the end of the episode.

PV: To briefly touch on this trend of sitcoms moving more toward pathos-it's something that I've noticed, but that I'm not fully on board with. Sure, I appreciate the light touches of sincerity every now and then, but not when they replace the jokes. It's why I've been a little sour on so many family sitcoms lately-more often than not, they seem to forgo laughs in favor of dramatic storylines and forced emotions. It makes me feel as if I'm being told how to react.

But I didn't feel this way about Blackadder. I suppose this has a lot do with how intense the subject matter is to begin with. It wasn't exactly a comedic story with a few dramatic elements, but rather a dramatic narrative that was loaded with jokes. It's incredibly funny, but it's certainly no lighthearted family sitcom.

But also: Blackadder didn't have a downer, emotional ending solely because it wanted to make us feel something-but because that was the only way "Goodbyeee" could have ended. It was the natural conclusion to the episode-and, though I haven't seen it, I assume to the series as well. I watched the episode again yesterday and was struck by the sheer impressiveness of the entire thing. It functioned on so many levels: as a satirical comedy, as a microcosm, and as a moving episode of television.

DS: Let me just say that I am overjoyed that you guys were all into the episode! I guess I shouldn't have been too worried-it's a classic for a reason, but the combination of assigning a series finale and an older British show had me worried you'd all call me a softy. It's even crazy to compare this to any other episode of this show- Blackadder had its emotional moments before, but always erred more toward farce, partially just because of the eras it was spoofing. There's humor to World War I, but it's of a darker sort. And really, once you've watched the ending, you realize there was no other option. Having the men just trudge on through their miserable trench lives wouldn't really acknowledge the reality of going "over the top," and having them win some spectacular battle would of course make no sense at all. The tone is just right: We don't see them brutally cut down with machine gun fire (the set they're running across is hardly pristine and the decision was made to cut away from it as quickly as possible), but the field of poppies is such a quietly devastating image in its own right.

Sonia, Melchett is hardly evil, although perhaps he's totemic for the banal kind of evil that drove this war to fruition in the first place. He represents everything about the old empires that carefully designed the checks and balances of territory and alliances that led to World War I. Oxbridge-educated, completely disconnected from the experience of almost everyone else in the country, raised on the notion that warfare and conquest is a matter of honor and national pride. Of course, he's super-heightened-ridiculously stupid, "barking mad," completely disconnected from reality. But there's a grain of truth to everything he does, and his decision to send Darling to the front line is representative of all those ridiculous concepts of honor I was talking about.

SS: That's interesting-I know I haven't seen the rest of it, but I wonder, now that I've seen this, if I'd be able to dismiss him as not evil. I'm sure you're right-he's intended to be more dumb than mean-but his utter banality, as you call it, makes him into a character capable of terrible things. But he is so familiar-he seems to me like every complacent person in power who embraces the status quo from their position of relative privilege, which is to say, pretty much every politician, and most of the rest of us, too. And it's that that makes him chilling. It's always easier to ignore the flaws in a system that serves you.

The characters in the show are all clearly representatives of several different classes-and as an outsider into English culture, it's fascinating to see how Blackadder skewers the same class that is universally adored in Downton Abbey, for example. But it's also telling that they all go over the top together, and are all wiped out together. I read a bit about the show after watching this episode, and apparently, there is some vague indication that Rowan Atkinson's Blackadders are all great-grandsons of the ones previous, so that there's some sense of an unbroken line. It's a superfluous plot conceit-we know it's just the same actor, we don't really need an explanation-but again that sitcom workaround comes to poignant fruition in this final scene, where not just Blackadder, but that line of Blackadders is wiped out. (Along with, presumably, the line of Baldricks that were always dogsbodies.)

You know, about a thousand years ago I wrote a 50-page paper on how World War I affected European painting (I know)-and one of the reasons I was drawn to the topic was because of how much Europe, and in particular Britain, changed after 1918. It's like World War I is this hard line through history and on one side is the old ways, and on the other side is the new. Although World War II may have been more significant for America, the Great War is when a lot of ideas about what Western civilization meant disappeared in a cloud of smoke (or, you know, mustard gas). It's very canny of Blackadder to end its foray through British history with Blackadder going over the top with his comrades. It's sort of like saying, "The past is over. Now what?"

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25 years later, Blackadder's finale is still devastating

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Welcome to the TV Roundtable, where some of TV Club's writers tackle episodes that all deal with a central theme. Now through March: some of our favorite episodes of all time. Blackadder Goes Forth *Each season of what we collectively call Blackadder had a different title, so although this is the fourth season of the popular show, it is just season one of Blackadder Goes Forth.