Episodes
See also: List of Blackadder episodesThe series aired for six episodes broadcast on BBC One on Thursdays at 9.30pm between 28 September and 2 November 1989, ending nine days before Remembrance Day. The titles of the first five episodes, "Captain Cook", "Corporal Punishment", "Major Star", "Private Plane" and "General Hospital" are puns based on the pairing of a military rank and another word related to the episode's content. The final episode, "Goodbyeee", was the title of a period song.
| No. | Title | Air date |
|---|---|---|
| 4-1 | Captain Cook | 28 September 1989 |
| When Field Marshal Haig unveils his new strategy to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin, Blackadder volunteers to be an Official War Artist, not realising that a commission to paint a cover for thoroughly absorbent propaganda magazine King and Country is just a ruse for a highly-dangerous secret mission. Can Baldrick's plan to become Melchett's chef save him, and how much custard can one cat produce? | ||
| 4-2 | Corporal Punishment | 5 October 1989 |
| Despite problems with communications, orders for another mission arrive and Blackadder breaches regulations by eating the messenger. With George as his lawyer in a court martial, and with only one night to live, can the Flanders pigeon murderer avoid death by firing squad using Baldrick's smuggled escape kit? Guest starring Jeremy Hardy as Corporal Perkins and Stephen Frost as Corporal Jones. | ||
| 4-3 | Major Star | 12 October 1989 |
| With everyone talking about the famous comedian Charlie Chaplin, Blackadder volunteers to organise a variety show in the hope that it will be shifted to the London Palladium. Unfortunately, Melchett has fallen in love with his leading lady, the fair Georgina (George dressed as a woman). Guest starring Gabrielle Glaister as Private "Bob" Parkhurst. | ||
| 4-4 | Private Plane | 19 October 1989 |
| Despite Blackadder's loathing of the arrogant flying ace Lord Flashheart, Blackadder, Baldrick and George volunteer to join the Royal Flying Corps unaware that their nickname the "Twenty Minuters" refers to their average life expectancy. After Blackadder and Baldrick crash their plane behind enemy lines, they are captured by the Germans (including a rather camp Baron von Richthofen) and must prepare for a fate worse than death. Guest starring Rik Mayall as Lord Flashheart and Adrian Edmondson as Baron von Richthofen. | ||
| 4-5 | General Hospital | 26 October 1989 |
| A game of "I Spy" goes terribly wrong when a bomb strikes Blackadder's bunker and injures George, leaving him in the care of the kindly Nurse Mary at the field hospital. After Melchett and Darling inform Blackadder that there is a German spy in the hospital giving away their battle plans, Blackadder and Darling are sent undercover. Guest starring Miranda Richardson as Nurse Mary Fletcher-Brown and Bill Wallis as Sir Bernard Proudfoot-Smith. | ||
| 4-6 | Goodbyeee | 2 November 1989 |
| Millions have died but the troops have advanced no further than "an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping". Now, at last, the 'final' big push looms, and Blackadder is willing to try anything to avoid it. Will putting a pair of underpants on his head and shoving two pencils up his nose get Blackadder invalided back to Blighty? Guest starring Geoffrey Palmer as Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. | ||
Read more about this topic: Blackadder Goes Forth
Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)