Blackadder II ed) [1986]

This DVD contains the complete second series of the legendary comedy, Blackadder, now digitally restored from the original programme masters. The filthy genes of the Blackadder dynasty bubble back to the surface as Lord Edmund swaggers around town with a big head and small beard in search of grace and favour from the stark-raving mad Queen Bess. Accompanied by a small rabble of riff-raff, together they manage to lower the whole tone of England’s golden age. Although now regarded as the opening salvo of a classic series, the original Blackadder series was not considered a great success, either among critics or many viewers, so a major rethink took place when it was recommissioned. On the writing front, future- Four Weddings And A Funeral scribe Richard Curtis was joined by Ben Elton, while the expensive War of the Roses-era sets were replaced by cosier Elizabethan ones. The most important change, however, was with Rowan Atkinson's eponymous character who, in the first series, had been a fairly weak-willed idiot but now emerged as the familiar Machiavellian fiend which would cement Atkinson's place in the pantheon of great British sitcom actors. Moreover, even if so many of the script's lines have been subsequently ripped off by lesser hands that it can't help but occasionally sound dated, the central performances of Atkinson, Tony Robinson (Baldrick), Tim McInnery (Lord Percy), Stephen Fry (Lord Melchett) and, of course, Miranda Richardson as the childishly psychotic Queen Elizabeth ("I love it when you get cross. Sometimes I think about having you executed just to see the expression on your face") remain note perfect. Yet the real pleasure for viewers may be in rediscovering the raft of excellent guest star performances--not least Tom "Doctor Who" Baker's berserk turn as a literally legless old sea dog given to guzzling his own urine long before the drinking water has run out. -- Clark Collis