The Good: Funny, Good character work, Surprisingly wonderful acting
The Bad: Medium, Some of the humor is a little abrasive.
The Basics: Enduring and funny, Blackadder overcomes the VHS medium with the source material to be worth recommending! A great historical comedy!
It is hard for me to not love and eagerly recommend Blackadder. The first series was so clever and funny that the first time I saw it on Comedy Central (when that was just a fledgling network back in the day) it was so different from anything else I had ever seen that I was so impressed by it. I was shocked at the combination of specific historical references and the universal humor. And with the later episodes of the first season, found on the Blackadder Part 2 video, I was surprised by how much I could empathize with a character in a comedy! But with Blackadder, I found something that spoke to my outsider nature and the three episodes on this video did that quite well.
It is a rare thing that I end up calling a VHS a poor use of the medium. Indeed, it is a poor medium, but the use of it is often limited only to being that medium. In the case of Blackadder Part 2 it is a poor use of the poor medium: the entire first season of Blackadder could easily have fit on one video whatwith its running time being under three hours. As it is, Blackadder Part 2 contains the last three episodes of the first season of Blackadder, a historical comedy set in the Dark Ages.
In "The Queen Of Spain's Beard," King Richard IV is juggling European powers with whom he is at war and he seeks to strike at the Swiss, despite the fact that they are currently his allies. As a result, he seeks to marry Harry to the Spanish Infanta in order to ally with Spain to help him crush France. Harry politely declines and Blackadder is suddenly set to be married to her, an idea that appeals to him quite a bit considering how he has been rejected by every other woman who has actually met him.
When he sees the Spanish Infanta, though, he thinks differently. Eager to get out of the arranged marriage, he pretends to be gay, tries to marry someone else and sends Baldrick in to deflower her, a series of events that still leads Edmund to the altar!
In "Witchsmeller Pursuivant," the Black Death is spreading across Europe and it appears King Richard has it! Abandoned by Harry, Blackadder is pressured by the lords to bring in a man who will help fight witchcraft in the kingdom. Blackadder and his friends seek out the Witchsmeller Pursuivant, a bloodthirsty crackpot who kills witches and innocents using the same test.
Unfortunately for Edmund, the moment the Witchsmeller meets Blackadder, he is offended by him and devises a test to implicate Edmund as a witch. On trial for witchcraft, Edmund, Percy and Baldrick confront the ridiculous accusations of the Witchsmeller, only to get caught up in the anti-witch hysteria.
In "The Black Seal," Black Adder's status as Duke of Edinburgh is stripped of him by King Richard on St. Juniper's Day, leaving the Blackadder feeling rejected and angry. He rids himself of Baldrick and Percy and strikes out with a retired Morris Dancer to find the most evil men in the land to help him wreak vengeance on the royal family with. He assembles a group of misfits, liars, corrupt religious folks, and psychopaths to await his signal and help him overthrow the royals.
En route back to the castle, though, Blackadder runs afoul of the one man he is convinced can thwart his plans, The Hawk, a deadly assassin who incarcerates Edmund and heads out to take over the kingdom himself!
Blackadder is a pretty tight mix of historical one-liners that make obscure references to British and European history and universal, timeless humor. So, for instance, in "The Queen Of Spain's Beard," the King goes through laundry lists of political alliances and drops the names of many historical figures. The confusion that might result from one trying to keep up with that is offset by humor like Edmund being shoved off the castle by a woman who thought when she received a love poem it was from Edmund's brother Harry.
Even so, the characters are fun and interesting. Edmund is hilarious with his pointless schemes and Percy is an utter idiot. Fans of Blackadder will be surprised to see that in these early episodes, Baldrick is not a complete idiot, nor is he the brunt of all of Blackadder's wrath and frustration. Instead, Baldrick is a cunning companion to Edmund who is the actual power and brains behind most of Edmund's schemes. For example, Baldrick is instrumental in helping Edmund escape the trial of the Witchsmeller!
On the character front, these last episodes of Blackadder are fleshed out with King Richard IV, a loud, psychopathic king whose machinations toward making war and securing England are comic. Then there is Harry, the goody two-shoes who is truly learned and yet utterly naive. His part in "Witchsmeller Pursuivant," for example, works perfectly because of the contrast between him and Edmund. He has a loose, authoritative style which no one challenges, but when he leaves the room for just a moment, a mob forms against Edmund and when the Witchsmeller arrives, Harry is all too happy to go along with the mob.
The acting is pretty decent as well, whatwith Rowan Atkinson taking the title role of Edmund Blackadder and making him into one of the most beautifully demented British comedy roles ever to grace the television. Atkinson has both a great wit with verbal comedy and a pretty impressive sense of physical comedy. In "The Black Seal," he has hilarious facial expressions when dealing with Mad Gerald and the members of the Black Seal.
In fact, the only real strikes against this video is that is it not living up to its capacity and the ridiculous (even for the time) special effects. As well, in "The Queen Of Spain's Beard," some of the humor gets a bit mean toward fat people (I'm fine with the anti-Spanish stuff, though, it appears!). In general, it's a wonderful collection of humor that holds up well over multiple viewings and the last scenes of "The Black Seal" is actually surprisingly sad and effective for a comedy.
That said, it is mostly very funny and anyone looking for something different from their comedies will likely enjoy these episodes of Blackadder, regardless of the medium!
[Given that VHS is a rapidly dying medium, a far better investment would be Blackadder - The Complete First Season, reviewed here!
As well, those who already love Blackadder will find Blackadder - The Complete Series to be an even better buy, reviewed here!
Thanks for reading!]
For other works featuring Brian Blessed, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
8/10
For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2012, 2009, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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