Goodbyeee
| "Goodbyeee" | |
|---|---|
| Blackadder episode | |
General Melchett catches Blackadder pretending to be mad. Melchett represents the "lions led by donkeys" perception of the war, and is an amalgam of Douglas Haig and John French, among others.
|
|
| Episode no. |
Series 4 (Blackadder Goes Forth) Episode 6 |
| Directed by | Richard Boden |
| Written by | |
| Produced by | John Lloyd |
| Original air date | 2 November 1989 |
| Running time | 29 minutes |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
"Goodbyeee", or "Plan F: Goodbyeee", is the sixth and final episode of the British historical sitcom Blackadder's fourth series, entitled Blackadder Goes Forth. The episode was first broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom on 2 November 1989, shortly before Armistice Day. Apart from the one-off short film Blackadder: Back & Forth made a decade later, it was the last episode of Blackadder to be produced and transmitted.
The episode depicts its main characters' final hours before a British offensive on the Western Front of the First World War, and Captain Blackadder's attempts to escape his fate by feigning madness; after he fails to convince General Melchett, and Field Marshal Haig's advice proves useless, he resigns himself to taking part in the push. Goodbyeee has a darker tone than other episodes in the series, culminating in its acclaimed ending in which the main characters are assumed to die in machine-gun fire. The episode's theme of death ties in with the series' use of gallows humour, its criticism and satire of war, and its depiction of authority figures contentedly sending their subordinates to face the enemy, while unwilling to do so themselves.
Richard Curtis and Ben Elton wrote the episode, and further material was provided by cast members. Its final sequence, which shows the main characters going "over the top", uses slow motion, as the programme's creators were unhappy with the result of the scripted ending. The enhanced scene has been described as bold and highly poignant.
Each series of Blackadder depicts its protagonist, always a scheming and (except in the first series) witty man named Edmund Blackadder, in different periods throughout history. In Blackadder Goes Forth, he is Captain Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), an officer in the British Army on the Western Front during the First World War.
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