Welcome back for our second series! For this return, I have a fantastic discussion with Matt and John about the legendary UK sitcom Blackadder II (1986, BBC).
We talk about its reinvention after the experimentation of The Black Adder (1983), how its cast make it really fly as an ensemble comedy, and some of our personal highlights. We then work our way through all six episodes, to sieve them for highlights and flaws. We attempted to be critical, but there is also just a fair bit of fanboying, let's face it.
0.00 Intro/preamble
0.09 Blackadder II in general
1.07 Episodes 1-6 more specifically
You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on escapegoatpod@gmail.com. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts. Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!
Matt can be found on YouTube with his regular co-hosted movie analysis show 'Matt and Mike Pull Focus'. He has previously appeared on several episodes of this show - including our previous episode on The Black Adder.
John has been watching and talking about television comedy since people repeatedly started singing the theme tune to 1980s sitcom Dear John at him. He has also been on quite a few episodes of the show now - including a great chat about Spaced.
All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.
NOTES
Blackadder II can currently be watched on both BBC iPlayer and Britbox. Both the Rowan Atkinson interview clips I use on the show (including a longer version of the latter one) can be found on YouTube.
The world of Blackadder fan fiction is very. very, very odd (I'm not kidding). I include this one here, which is far from the oddest I've seen (ask me in the pub), but is notable for the way it tries to thread together the first and the second series in a way that no-one asked for, needed, or could have imagined.
