The Final Episode :(

To the poster who mentioned The Fast Show - that's the only comedy programme besides Blackadder that has made me cry. But for me, it's in Ralph and Ted - when Ted's wife has died and they're attending the funeral. Ted (Paul Whitehouse) is trying really hard to be strong, but ends up breaking down
in Ralph's (Charlie Higson) arms. Heartbreaking stuff. Just as this was - I've seen Goodbyee episode hundreds of times (the first time in GCSE English seven years ago) and it's never failed to make me bawl my socks off.

(Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse were incidentally, once plasterers for Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry)

What is your name, Sir, that you must shroud yourself under a lightweight travelling hat?

The audience laughs when Darling says "it simply says 'bugger'.", but to me it's the saddest line in the whole episode.

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When most shows end, I'm sad because a good show isn't making anymore episodes. The finale of Blackadder is the only show I've ever seen that made me upset because the characters, the people...were gone.

And the tide is turned so quickly from comedy to tragedy that the ending literally kicks you in the face, especially after watching all the comedic "fake-deaths" of the earlier series.

George's "I'm scared..." broke my heart. I thought for sure that someone would come back after the credits, someone had to have survived to make one last quip for one last laugh. But that only works in television. And there's no way that last scene was anything but real.

Can't really add anything to what has already been said: classic, absolutely classic and brilliant episode. I have rewatched the series recently and even though it has been more than 15 years since i first saw it, i could instantly remember and quote pretty much the entire episode. The last scene is just haunting and am surprised it didn't generate enough interest to do more series and movies based on WW1 ( am thinking a Band of Brothers style series for the first war, done properly would be insanely good). Rowan Atkinson should do more of this type of comedy and less Mr. Bean type stuff.

I personally hated it. The first five episodes of this series were sharp, cynical, witty, and poignant without ever resorting to sentimentality and 'seriousness'. They were searing indictments of the First World War that were told through clever humour instead of nauseating earnestness.

So it was, with the sixth episode as yet unseen, that I had privately declared the fourth series of the acclaimed comedy to be the second best (coming only after the third). However, after then viewing the deplorable sixth episode, I immediately retracted my statement and demoted the series to the second worst entry (in front of only the first series, not counting the specials) in the Blackadder saga.

I was infuriated with the ending. After six years of strong, though quite surreal, comical cynicism, the writers - and I'm almost certain this is Richard 'I am the most overrated comedy writer in all of Great Britain who likes to write a lot of juvenile sex jokes and riddle my sitcoms with ardent political correctness and excessive 60's/70's popular culture references' Curtis' fault - suddenly felt they had an obligation to be solemn just because they were afraid that a few geriatric war veterans (of practically every bloody war that has been fought since WWI) would call them mean-spirited and disrespectful.

The episode, despite possessing a few great one-liners, isn’t even well written. It’s erratic in tone and content and lacks solid thematic continuity with the rest of the series. And every time I remember that moment when Captain Darling tells us what his final entry in his diary is I weep – not because of the sadness of the situation, but because of the sadness felt over the murder committed by bad-timing and indigested writing of what could have been one of the most hilarious moments in the series.

I'm not saying they weren't making a legitimate point about the Great War in those final seconds of the show, but I am saying that they could have just as easily said the exact same thing with a greater level of intelligence through comedy than through melodrama and sensationalism.

This all falls into my belief that nothing is sacrosanct from humour and mockery. Nothing! All that matters is whether it is mocked intelligently and wittily, or whether it is mocked through vulgarity and deplorable shock humour.

Hear the words I sing!
War is a horrible thing!
Ding a ling a ling.

Janet! Donkeys!