Blackadder: Back & Forth
Created by Richard Curtis & Rowan Atkinson
Written by Richard Curtis & Ben Elton
Directed by Paul Weiland
Starring Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny

by Samantha McLaren, Staff Writer

In the season three premiere of Dan Harmon’s Community, “Biology 101,” Britta (Gillian Jacobs) helps Abed (Danny Pudi) get over the loss of his latest TV obsession by introducing him to the British sitcom upon which it was based. This series, called Cougarton Abbey, does satiate Abed for a while—that is, until he discovers that the final episode ends in death by suicide.

“That’s the great thing about British TV,” Britta says as Abed screams. “They give you closure.”

Cougarton Abbey is fictional, but the experience it recounts is not. More than one British comedy show has ended with the deaths of its main characters, but none more memorably than beloved period sitcom Blackadder (1983-1989).

Created by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, and written primarily by Curtis and Ben Elton, Blackadder follows various descendants of the Blackadder lineage as they attempt to raise their station in life through unscrupulous means. Each season is set in a different time period, moving from an alternative history of the Middle Ages to the court of Queen Elizabeth I, then on to the Regency era, and finally to the trenches of the First World War. Once the series settles comfortably into its niche in the second season, the overarching plot always follows a familiar pattern: clever, conniving Edmund Blackadder (always played by Atkinson, who Americans may recognize as Mr. Bean) has gotten close to a dimwitted aristocrat and must tolerate them while he schemes, sometimes helped—but more often than not hindered—by his simple, smelly subordinate, Baldrick (played each season by Tony Robinson, with the exception of the unaired pilot).

It’s a funny show, and one that ended in just about the most heartbreaking way possible. After plenty of jolly good laughs on the Western Front, Blackadder’s season four finale, “Goodbyeee,” concludes with its characters resigned to their fate as they are ordered to go “over the top,” running out into no man’s land and directly into enemy fire. The scene fades to a peaceful field of poppies, a symbol synonymous with the war dead in Britain, where the scars of the First World War run deep to this day.

And that was where we left the shrewd Edmund Blackadder for a decade. His quick wit silenced and his schemes ultimately coming to naught. But on December 31, 1999, almost 25 years ago to this day, a new incarnation of the character would appear, albeit under unusual circumstances.

In the late nineties, as half the world prepared for a potential technological apocalypse, the British government was hard at work on a project intended to bring the United Kingdom triumphantly into the new millennium. That project was the Millennium Dome, a large-scale, London-based exhibition inspired by the likes of the World’s Fair and the 1951 Festival of Britain that was intended to run throughout the year 2000.

Initially conceived under Conservative Prime Minister John Major, the Dome project was inherited by incoming Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997, who went all in on the project in spite of immense public and media backlash. Blair described the Dome as an “opportunity to greet the world with a celebration that is so bold, so beautiful, so inspiring, that is embodies at once the spirit of confidence and adventure in Britain and the spirit of the future in the world.” The public, however, remained unconvinced. Low ticket sales plagued the Dome across its year-long lifespan, with the project widely remembered today as a colossal failure.

Despite this, many visitors look back fondly on the Dome, which was divided into 14 uniquely themed “Zones,” each exploring a different aspect of human life. Sure, many were tainted by the unmistakable meddling of corporate sponsors, but that didn’t make it any less cool to walk through a ginormous model of the human body and gawk at the beating heart, or to marvel at the impressive Millennium Dome Show, featuring 160 acrobats, dancers, and aerial performers and a soundtrack by Peter Gabriel.

Perhaps best of all though, at least to the TV fanatics in attendance, the Dome boasted something you truly couldn’t see anywhere else at the time: an all-new, one-off Blackadder special called Blackadder: Back & Forth.

Reuniting virtually all the core cast and regulars, along with writers Curtis and Elton, Blackadder: Back & Forth was initially only viewable at the “SkyScape” cinema next to the Dome, where it would play eight times a day. In line with the themes of the Dome, this specially commissioned short film celebrates and pokes gentle fun at Britain’s past while ushering its characters into a hopeful future.

The iteration of Blackadder that we meet in Back & Forth has finally achieved a degree of wealth but is no less conniving. It’s New Year’s Even 1999 and Lord Blackadder (played once again by Atkinson) has invited four esteemed guests to his manor to celebrate. These are Lady Elizabeth (Miranda Richardson), Archbishop Melchett (Stephen Fry), Archdeacon Kevin Darling (Tim McInnerny), and Major George (Hugh Laurie), all implied to be descendants of Blackadder’s many foils throughout the series. Over dinner, Blackadder informs his guests that he has built a time machine based on plans drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci and bets them £10,000 apiece that he can fetch any historical item they request.

This is, of course, a scam, but one that takes an unexpected turn. A paragon of incompetence, Blackadder’s servant Baldrick (Robinson) was instructed to create a fake time machine but has built a real one by mistake.

This results in a series of cameo-studded capers through time, including run-ins with William Shakespeare (Colin Firth), Queen Elizabeth I (Richardson, reprising her role from Blackadder II), and Robin Hood (Rik Mayall) and Maid Marian (supermodel Kate Moss). But Blackadder’s careless greed and arrogance has disastrous consequences. After accidentally killing the Duke of Wellington (Fry) during the Battle of Waterloo, he and Baldrick return to their own time to discover that the French now rule Britain.

The duo quickly go back and put things to rights, but the kerfuffle has given Blackadder a rather sly idea. “I have a very, very, very cunning plan,” he tells his servant, referencing Baldrick’s signature catchphrase. “Is it as cunning as a fox what used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University but has moved on and is now working for the U.N. at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning?” Baldrick asks to which Blackadder confirms, “Yes, it is.”

He isn’t lying. After the pair make one final trip in the time machine, we see Blackadder’s guests gathering around the television to watch the royal family—revealed to be King Edmund III and his new bride, the beautiful Queen Marion of Sherwood—and Prime Minister Baldrick as they arrive at the Millennium Dome for the grand opening. “What a great partnership these two have become,” the BBC’s then-royal correspondent, Jennie Bond, says of Blackadder and Baldrick, “leading Britain into a prosperous and triumphant new millennium.” The pair turn to look at the camera, Baldrick winks, and the special ends.

With murmurings of a fifth season never coming to fruition, at least at the time of writing, Blackadder: Back & Forth is where we leave these much-loved characters. After more than five centuries of scheming, the Blackadder family has finally achieved the wealth and power it always craved. And despite all the scathing put-downs he’s thrown Baldrick’s way over the years, we’re left with the sense that, ultimately, Blackadder needs him.

“There’s always a Blackadder and there’s always a Baldrick,” the latter reflects after their journey through time. The hopeful tone of the special makes it easy to imagine that continuing in perpetuity. The ending to Blackadder Goes Forth, the fourth and final series of Blackadder, might be one of the most poignant in sitcom history, but it’s nice to have Blackadder: Back & Forth to give us a different kind of closure.