Blackadder Goes Forth

When perfect show endings are discussed the final scene of Blackadder Goes Forth is rightly considered to be the gold standard. For those who haven’t come across the series, it is the fourth instalment of a comedy series that followed Rowan Atkinson as four members of the Blackadder family through history. The fourth Blackadder was a soldier in the trenches of WWI placed in charge of a unit of misfits including Baldrick played by Tony Robinson who was his servant in the previous series and who was the constant target of Blackadder’s frustration.

The important thing to realise is that the finale only works if you have seen the rest of the series. You follow their journeys and grow to care about them. They are often stupid and in Blackadder’s case unpleasant and duplicitous but they are looking to survive a situation without parallel in human history. Blackadder always has a plan but they always end up going wrong but he is determined to get away from the front one way or another.

The finale itself was first shown in the late 1980s prior to the modern atomised viewing experience. I was at Staffordshire Polytechnic and pretty much everyone had seen it and we were all pretty much silent. When you were asked ‘Did you see it?’, there was no question what ‘it’ was. Watch the whole series and our reactions make sense. Watch the finale on its own and it’s good but it can’t possibly have a proper impact.

Comedy or drama, no ending has ever matched Blackadder Goes Forth.