Goodbyeee

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Episode of the Blackadder series
Original title Goodbyeee
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
length 29 minutes
classification Season 4, episode 6,
24th episode overall
First broadcast November 2, 1989 on BBC One
Rod
Director Richard Boden
script Richard Curtis ,
Ben Elton
production John Lloyd

Goodbyeee also Plan F: Goodbyeee ( corruption of goodbye , for goodbye , analogous to Tschü-hüüs or wiedaseeehn ) is the 6th and last episode of the 4th season of the British comedy series Blackadder by Rowan Atkinson, which has won several awards in the United Kingdom and Richard Curtis . Although conceived as a comedy, this episode, which, like all the others of the 1917 season, is set in a British trench in northern France in the middle of World War I , was clearly out of the ordinary due to its gloomy overall mood. In particular, the final scene, which has an open ending , but apparently depicts the death of the four protagonists of the series in an assault on German positions, made a lasting impression on both viewers and critics, so that Goodbyeee received several awards. The original 29-minute episode first aired on BBC One on November 2, 1989 . The German first broadcast was on October 17, 1994 on 3sat in the English original with German subtitles .

content

Position in the overall series

Goodbyeee is the last episode of the 4th and final season ( Blackadder Goes Forth , Blackadder advances or Blackadder marches forward ) of the 1986 to 1989 television series Blackadder , which depicts the fictional life of Edmond Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) and his two companions, ( Baldrick Tony Robinson , Blackadders sidekick and living running gag of the series and Percy / Captain Darling Tim McInnerny ), as well as three other companions (different characters, played by Stephen Fry , Hugh Laurie and Miranda Richardson ) over a period of almost 500 years from the Representing Tudors in the 15th century until 1917. The character of Edmond Blackadder goes through a change from a devious, selfish failure to a thoughtful cynic , while the other people, especially Baldrick and Percy / Captain Darling, are depicted largely unchanged.

The series ran on German television initially in the English original with German subtitles, as the pun in the original was difficult or impossible to transfer. A German- dubbed version followed only later . The last episode also had different German titles from Farewell to Arte , to Black Adders Farewell to 3sat , to Auf Wiiiedersehen (Plan F: Goodbyeee) .

Content of "Goodbyeee"

As in the previous episodes of Blackadder Goes Forth , the cynic Captain Blackadder is still in a trench on the French Western Front fighting the Germans. Life on the front is characterized by illness, deprivation and everyday danger to life, the absurdity of war in general and the war of positions and wear and tear in particular, as well as inhuman, senseless assault attacks on German positions, ordered again and again at the cost of countless human lives, with no or only very little gain in terrain.

After all attempts to escape alive in the last few episodes have failed, Blackadder makes one last attempt by pretending he's gone insane . After a lot of back and forth, he fails with that too, because in the madness of the war he is only surrounded by crazy people, so that another crazy person does not stand out at all. While Blackadder, Private S. Baldrick and the idiot-good-natured Lieutenant George Colthurst St. Barleigh (Hugh Laurie) face death every day, the incompetent, self-loving General Melchett (Stephen Fry), a grotesque mixture of the two British Field Marshals Douglas, leads Haig and John French , far behind the front lines, a carefree life in a luxurious château . His adjutant is Blackadder's arch-rival Captain Kevin Darling (Tim McInnerny), an arrogant bureaucrat and stage stallion , who ultimately messes with his superior and in the last episode is transferred to the front with Blackadder.

Final scene

After all previous attacks on the German positions have resulted in nothing but high losses of their own, Blackadder, Baldrick, Darling and St. Barleigh wait stoically for the next day in the hope that either a miracle will happen or they will otherwise as before the safe Death would be saved in the next senseless assault. However, none of this happens, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the next - most likely her last - attack is now finally imminent. In contrast to all previous episodes, this time there will be no more escape.

Baldrick's standard sentence in hopeless situations like this was always: I have a cunning plan. (I have an ingenious plan.) These "ingenious plans" were absurd throughout , and yet, miraculously, they were repeatedly rescued from the most hopeless situations. This time, too, he says his standard sentence again, but Blackadder, who otherwise only met Baldrick's stupid ideas with sarcasm and cynicism, answers this time only resignedly :

“Well, I'm afraid it'll have to wait. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?… Good luck, everyone. "

“Well, I'm afraid that will have to wait. Whatever it was, it was definitely better than my plan to get out of here by playing the crazy one. Honestly, who would have noticed another lunatic here? [In the distance you can hear whistles and orders from British officers signaling the imminent attack to their units.] ... Good luck everyone. [Blackadder blows his own whistle] "

The four and all other soldiers of the unit climb out of the trenches and storm in slow motion through the no man's land and (so to speak, directly towards the spectators and) the German positions. You can hear and see explosions, hear screams and machine gun salvos. The four gradually disappear in clouds of smoke and haze. In the background you can hear a piano softly, which lazily varies the title melody of the series disharmoniously . At the end you only hear a few dull drumbeats. The fate of the four remains uncertain. The scene changes slowly by fading : There is no more battle noise to be heard, but the chirping of birds. In the bright sunshine you can see a large field, dotted with red poppies . The credits follow .

reception

Blooming corn poppy

For British and Commonwealth audiences, the final scenes are highly symbolic : The First World War is deeply rooted in their collective memory . The red poppy that can be seen in the last few seconds has a special meaning in the culture of remembrance . It is a metaphor for the fallen. Red poppy is a recurring symbol, as in John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields , or as Remembrance Poppy on Remembrance Day , the national day of remembrance for those who fell in World War I.

Another important point is the popular opinion - but largely refuted by historians - that incompetent, indifferent generals from the upper classes and nobility were primarily responsible for the high British losses. A recurring catchphrase here is Lions led by donkeys (lions [led] by donkeys) . In other words : The simple Tommys fought like lions, but were led by (stupid) donkeys and so "burned". This sentence is still so popular today that in the run-up to Brexit, some Brexit opponents (“Remainer”) ran a campaign with the hashtag #LedByDonkeys .

Although the makers of Blackadder initially had concerns that the horror of World War could be trivialized by portraying it in a comedy series , the popularity of the audience and critics was so great that the series won the British Academy Television Award for Best Comedy Series won. In 2000, Blackadder Goes Forth was ranked 16th of the 100 best British television programs on BFI TV 100 , followed in 2004 on Britain's Best Sitcom as the second best British sitcom again for the entire series Blackadder . In 2019, the British film magazine Empire Blackadder was one of the 100 best TV shows of all time .

Deviating from the episodes of the first three seasons, in which historical events and people were mentioned or represented, the last season constantly referred to historical events and people, which were mostly exaggerated and pointedly commented on by Captain Blackadder . So was u. a. mentioned the Christmas peace of 1914 , the entry of the United States into the war on April 6, 1917 or various people in contemporary history, including Charlie Chaplin and the “Red Baron” Manfred von Richthofen . The portrayal of soldiers' life in trench warfare with vermin, disease and hunger was rated as almost authentic. Blackadder Goes Forth had almost all of the action in a trench.

However, numerous journalists and historians criticized z. Sometimes violent, the one-sided, stereotypical , clichéd and coportage-like representation often contradicting the current state of research. The unreflective reception by many viewers, who viewed the depiction of the First World War as authentic and true to the truth, was also criticized . The British journalist Max Hastings described this phenomenon as Blackadder take [s] on history (Blackadder buttons himself to the story) . The military historian Richard Holmes wrote: Blackadder's aphorisms have become fact… A well-turned line of script can sometimes carry more weight than all the scholarly footnotes in the world. (Blackadders aphorisms have become facts ... A well-written script can sometimes be more important than all the scientific footnotes in the world.) .

It was also criticized that Blackadder Goes Forth was used as teaching material in some schools, not as secondary material to be discussed and analyzed, but actually as a representation that corresponds to the truth, even if it is packaged as a parody .

literature

  • JF Roberts: The True History of the Black Adder. The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend. Preface Publishing, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-84809-346-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Blackadder episode guide on fernsehserien.de, accessed on March 28, 2020.
  2. ↑ Finlo Rohrer: How accurately set does Blackadder reflect history? on bbc.com, June 15, 2013.
  3. ↑ Hew Strachan : Back to the Trenches. Why Can't British Historians Be Less Insular about the First World War? In: Times Literary Supplement . November 5, 2008.
  4. ^ Peter Anthony Thompson: Lions led by donkeys. Showing how victory in the great war was achieved by those who made the fewest mistakes. Laurie, London 1927
  5. ↑ Alan Clark : The Donkeys. Hutchinson, 1961.
  6. ↑ LedByDonkeys on twitter.com .
  7. ↑ Sam Wollaston: Four men with a ladder: the billboard campaigners battling Brexit on theguardian.com. February 7, 2019.
  8. ↑ BAFTA: Television Nominations 1989 ( Memento of February 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) on bafta.org .
  9. ↑ The BFI TV 100: 1-100 ( Memento of 11 September 2011 at the Internet Archive ) on bfi.org.uk .
  10. ↑ The Final Top 10 Sitcoms ( Memento from October 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on bbcattic.org .
  11. ↑ The 100 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time. on empireonline.com .
  12. ↑ Marie Stirling: 'Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin': Blackadder Goes Forth ( Memento of October 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) of September 20, 2011 in New Histories .
  13. ↑ Stephen Badsey: The Great War Since The Great War. In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Vol. 22 (2002), no. 1, pp. 37-45, doi: 10.1080 / 01439680220120273 .
  14. ↑ Finlo Rohrer: How accurately set does Blackadder reflect history? on bbc.com, June 15, 2013.
  15. ^ Max Hastings: Catastrophe 1914. Knopf, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-307-59705-2 , Introduction.
  16. ^ Richard Holmes: The Western Front. BBC Books, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-84607-582-7 , p. 17.
  17. ^ Jerome de Groot: Consuming History. Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture. 2nd Edition. Routledge, London / New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-138-90531-3 , p. 239.
  18. ^ Esther MacCallum-Stewart: Television Docu-Drama and The First World War. ( Memento of November 4, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 142 kB) University of Sussex, 2002.
  19. ↑ Jeremy Paxman: Blackadder star Sir Tony Robinson in Michael Gove WW1 row on bbc.com/news, Jan. 5, 2014.