Similarities To The Pilot Episode
The plot of Born to Be King contains a large proportion of material which was originally written for the unaired pilot episode in 1982, in which Prince Edmund arranges the festivities for the Queen's birthday and the Scottish hero Dougal McAngus returns to the court and reveals Edmund's illegitimacy.
The pilot episode differs from Born to Be King a number of respects:
- The pilot episode is set some 400 years later in 1583.
- The cast includes different actors playing certain roles - The King, Prince Harry, and Baldrick are played by John Savident, Robert Bathurst and Philip Fox respectively. Prince Harry is named Prince Henry.
- Edmund's character is much more like that of his descendants in the other series: more sarcastic and cruel.
- In the pilot, the King is not at the crusades, but at home.
- MacAngus discovers that Edmund's parentage is in doubt at the same time as the rest of the court, rather than knowingly setting him up to reveal it.
- Edmund's plot to kill MacAngus involves a hanging with a fake rope, not a staged stabbing with a real dagger, although the plan backfires in much the same way.
- The King remembers Edmund and his name.
- Edmund is Duke of York rather than Duke of Edinburgh.
- Edmund and MacAngus have the duel, rather than having MacAngus slicing Edmund's sword in half before it could start.
- Prince Edmund resolves his problem after the duel by apparently getting a Frenchman to confess to forging the letters; in Born to be King, Edmund casts the letters into the fire, merely asserting that they are forgeries.
Read more about this topic: Born To Be King (The Black Adder)
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