Episodes
The series aired for six episodes broadcast on Thursdays at 9.30 on BBC One. The titles of the episodes are always a noun paired with another, derived from an adjective beginning with the same letters, based on the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility. On the first broadcast, Amy and Amiability was billed in the Radio Times under its working title of Cape and Capability.
| No. | Title | Airdate |
|---|---|---|
| 3-1 | Dish and Dishonesty | 17 September 1987 |
| The newly elected Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger, plans to bankrupt Prince George by striking him from the Civil List. With Parliament deadlocked, Blackadder devises a plan to have Baldrick elected as an MP in the rotten borough of Dunny-on-the-Wold and thus ensure the bill will be defeated. This episode lampoons British parliamentary politics, BBC election coverage and a corrupt British honours system. | ||
| 3-2 | Ink and Incapability | 24 September 1987 |
| To increase his intellectual standing, the prince decides to become patron of Dr. Johnson's new dictionary, much to Blackadder's disgust. However Johnson is also planning to publish a novel written by Blackadder under a pseudonym, thus making him a millionaire. Matters are complicated however, when Baldrick destroys the manuscript of the dictionary by burning it. Blackadder must devise a scheme to ensure that Johnson's dictionary, and thus his novel, are published. Robbie Coltrane makes a guest appearance as Dr. Johnson. | ||
| 3-3 | Nob and Nobility | 1 October 1987 |
| The Scarlet Pimpernel is the hero of the age. Blackadder, irritated by the new obsession with all things French, decides to cash in on the new craze. Attempting to emulate the elusive Pimpernel, Blackadder accepts a bet to rescue a French nobleman and collect a handsome reward. His plans go awry, however, when he and Baldrick are captured and have to escape from the clutches of the French revolutionaries. Former cast member Tim McInnerny returns as a guest star, as well as fellow comic Chris Barrie. | ||
| 3-4 | Sense and Senility | 8 October 1987 |
| After an assassination attempt is made on the prince by anarchists, the prince hires two actors to help him improve his image and help him deliver a speech. Out of favour with the prince, Blackadder vows to leave his service but instead returns in time to discredit the actors by accusing them of plotting to assassinate the prince and thus reclaim his place in the household. | ||
| 3-5 | Amy and Amiability | 15 October 1987 |
| On discovering that the prince has lost his money playing cards, Edmund attempts to marry him off to Amy Hardwood, the daughter of a rich northern industrialist. Acting as middle man in the courtship, Blackadder eventually discovers that Amy's also broke. However it is also revealed that Amy is in fact The Shadow, a notorious highwayman, and Blackadder hatches a scheme to make himself rich. Former cast member Miranda Richardson returns as a guest star playing Amy. | ||
| 3-6 | Duel and Duality | 22 October 1987 |
| The Prince incurs the wrath of The Duke of Wellington by spending a night with his nieces. Wellington vows to kill the prince in a duel, leaving Blackadder to formulate a cunning plan to substitute his own Scottish cousin, MacAdder, for the Prince in the duel. When this plan falls through, however, Blackadder must swap places with the Prince and fight the duel himself. Stephen Fry guest stars as the Duke of Wellington. | ||
Read more about this topic: Blackadder The Third
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)