Last of the Summer Wine Barry trying to better himself (at the insistence of Glenda), and Tom trying to stay one step ahead of the repo man. "Last of the Summer Wine" is the longest-running comedy programme in Britain, and the longest running situation comedy in the world. Each series has between six and twelve episodes; most were thirty minutes in length, with some specials running longer. There were 295 episodes and 31 series between 1973 and 2010, counting the pilot, all episodes of the series, specials, and two films. In 1978, the BBC commissioned a "Last of the Summer Wine" Christmas special instead of
The Black Adder (pilot episode) the script of the pilot episode was used for the second episode of the first series, "Born to Be King", which contains many similar characters, situations and lines to the pilot. Like the first series, "The Black Adder", it was written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson. However, the episode features a number of major differences to the aired first series. The pilot episode is introduced with on-screen scrolling text which announces that the setting is "Europe, 400 years ago" which, based on the date of production, places the episode during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. In this respect,