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| Mandie Fletcher & Dean Shardlow |
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| Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Brian Blessed,
Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny, Miranda Richardson |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Edmund
Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson): So... Lady Fortune vomits on me once
again.
A
TV series charting the misadventures of a hapless courtesan through
various ages of English history.
 The
first Black Adder series, originally broadcast in 1983, presented Edmund
Blackadder as a whiny, fairly inarticulate bastard son of the English
medieval King Richard IV, whose endless conniving quest for power is
as useless as it is entertaining. A messy but fun combination of Shakespearian
dialogues with original material by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson,
the first series presented a credibly grungy and blood-thirsty image
of the early Middle Ages, and the ever ebullient Brian Blessed brought
great life to six funny episodes that were smartly plotted but whose
protagonist was a rather one-note character.
The second series moves most main characters to the Elizabethan court,
where Edmund is provided with a werlcome personality change, courtesy
of the newly formed writers' team of Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. Edmund's
fortunes hardly improve, but the courtesan he plays here is much more
intelligent and most eloquent in his ruthless machinations. The introduction
of Miranda Richardson as Queen Elizabeth I and Stephen Fry as Lord Melchett
adds further hilarity and a welcome enrichment of the main cast. The
plots in this second series are much more tightly constructed, and the
one-liners fly fast and furious as Edmund's attempts to move up in the
world are continuously thwarted, often by powers outside his control.
The third series more than maintains this consistently high level of
comedy. Moving Edmund Blackadder into the position of moronic Prince
Regent George III (Hugh Laurie) provides Atkinson with an even better
position for sarcastic asides, witty retorts and plentiful opportunities
for nefarious scheming. The final unexpected reversal of fortunes in
this third series would already have made a great ending for what is
already a firmly established classic of English comedy.
But the series was brought to a phenomenal conclusion with the fourth
and final series Blackadder Goes Forth, which manages to bring
nearly all regular cast members together in a brilliant WWI satire that
sees the next hapless descendant of the Blackadder line caught in the
trenches of France, and forced to endure the company of moronic Private
Baldrick and gung-ho Lieutenant George (Hugh Laurie). The trademark
puns and elaborate similes fly fast and furious, and the large cast
performs impeccably. The final episode ends with an unexpectedly grim
turn that is wholly fitting the subject matter (which is handled with
a combination of delicacy, outrage and humor) and that also fits perfectly
into the thematics of the previous series. |
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A
five-disc collector's set including all four Black Adder series plus
a disc full of extras and features is available for Region 1. All four
series are also available on DVD for Region 2 as separate releases.
This review deals with the four discs available for Region 2.
The
fullscreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.33:1. Taken
from the BBC video masters, the best thing that can be said about this
presentation is that the transfer doesn't introduce any compression
flaws or other new flaws. The picture otherwise has that patented made-for-BBC-TV
look with a general softness and lack of detail or definition to it.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo presentation is adequate, with clearly
intelligible dialogues. For this series, the rest hardly matters.
No
extras are included in these releases. The
animated menu screens have a nicely functional design, featuring animated
scene previews in the episode and scene selection screens.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Black
Adder .
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to return to the front page.
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