Here's something that'll make you appreciate television history: the Blackadder we all know and love almost died after its first series. The original 1983 version, set in medieval times, was a expensive disaster that BBC executives wanted to cancel immediately. It had massive battle scenes, location shooting, and a budget that made accountants weep. Critics weren't kind either, calling it confused and overblown. Yet somehow, this near-failure transformed into one of Britain's most beloved sitcoms.
The miracle happened when Ben Elton joined Richard Curtis as co-writer for the second series, and the entire format got flipped on its head. Gone were the costly location shoots and the bumbling Edmund. In came studio filming, tiny budgets, and a razor-sharp, sardonic Blackadder who was actually clever. Rowan Atkinson fought for this change, wanting his character to be the smart one surrounded by idiots rather than the other way around. This single decision changed everything. Blackadder II, set in Elizabethan England, debuted in 1986 and became an instant classic.
What's genuinely fascinating is how the show played with British history across four series, each jumping to a different era. From the Middle Ages to the Elizabethan court, then the Regency period, and finally the trenches of World War I. Each incarnation featured the same actors playing descendants (or ancestors) of their previous characters. Stephen Fry's various buffoons, Tony Robinson's long-suffering Baldricks, and Tim McInnerny's dim-witted Percys became part of Britain's cultural DNA. The wordplay was wickedly clever—Blackadder's insults are still quoted today, from calling Baldrick's ideas "cunning plans" to describing people as having "all the artistic talent of a cluster of colorless fungi."
The final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth remains one of television's most powerful moments. After three series of clever comedy, the show ended with Blackadder and his men going over the top into no man's land, the scene fading to a poppy field. It aired in November 1989, and grown adults wept. The shift from satire to genuine tragedy caught everyone off guard. Writer Richard Curtis has said he still meets people who tell him that final scene changed their understanding of World War I. Not bad for a sitcom that almost got cancelled after six episodes, eh?