Blackadder thirty-five miles from the front, where he is aided and abetted by his assistant, Captain Kevin Darling (Tim McInnerny), pencil-pusher supreme and Blackadder's nemesis, whose name is played on for maximum comedic value. The series' tone is somewhat darker than the other "Blackadder"s; it details the deprivations of trench warfare as well as the incompetence and life-wasting strategies of the top brass. For example, Baldrick is reduced to making coffee from mud and cooking rats, while General Melchett hatches a plan for the troops to walk very slowly toward the German lines, because "it'll be the last thing Fritz will
Blackadder Goes Forth clever, and very funny, and they all want to push the scripts along. It's a very exhausting process, and by the end of it we all swear we'll never, ever, do another one. But then you start to think how rare it is to get so many good people in the same room and you talk yourself into doing another series." Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson reprised their roles as Edmund Blackadder and Baldrick respectively. Hugh Laurie also returned to play Lieutenant George. The fourth series enlarged the principal cast from the third series to include Stephen Fry as General