TV-PGSeason 1
The most gripping sitcom since 1380.
Synopsis
Blackadder (1983), Season 1 is the BBC period sitcom you can watch online on iFILM — six episodes set in an alternate 1485 where Richard III dies by accident and Richard IV takes the throne.
This first run, originally titled The Black Adder, gives us a very different Edmund: not the sly schemer of later series but a sniveling, second-rate prince desperate for his father's approval. Each episode is its own disaster. He kills a king by mistake, tries to brand his brother a bastard, blunders into the role of Archbishop of Canterbury, gets engaged to a Spanish princess he can't stand, lands on trial for witchcraft, and finally plots to seize the crown with the six most evil men in England. Baldrick and the dim Lord Percy ruin everything they touch.
Written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, shot on real castles with a budget the sequels never got, it's coarser and stranger than what followed — and worth seeing for exactly that. Stream Blackadder Season 1 online on iFILM.
6 episodes
S1·E1The Foretelling
After arriving late for the Battle of Bosworth Field, Edmund kills King Richard III (whom he thinks is stealing his horse) and secures the crown for his father.
S1·E2Born to Be King
With his father away at The Crusades, Edmund comes up with a plan to prove his brother is illegitimate, thus making him Prince Regent.
S1·E3The Archbishop
Edmund is appointed to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury after the King has the last one killed.
S1·E4The Queen of Spain's Beard
The King decides that Edmund should marry a Spanish princess, who Edmund finds unattractive, in order to secure a treaty between Spain and England which will allow an invasion of France.
S1·E5Witchsmeller Pursuivant
Percy and Baldrick are to be burned at the stake with Edmund, when he is accused of being a witch.
S1·E6The Black Seal
After the King takes away Edmund's title of Duke, he recruits the six most evil men in the land to take the crown by force.
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