Blackadder meeting between Richard Curtis and comedian Ben Elton led to the decision to collaborate on a new series of Blackadder. Recognising the main faults of the first series, Curtis and Elton agreed that "Blackadder II" would be a studio-only production (along with the inclusion of a live audience during recording, instead of showing the episodes to an audience after taping). Besides adding a greater comedy focus, Elton suggested a major change in character emphasis: Baldrick would become the stupid sidekick, while Edmund Blackadder evolved into a cunning sycophant. This led to the familiar set-up that was maintained in the following
Blackadder the end of "Blackadder Rides Again", the chances of it happening are extremely slim. There were a couple of ideas that had previously floated for the fifth series. "Batadder" was intended to be a parody of "Batman" with Baldrick as the counterpart of Robin (suggested by John Lloyd). This idea eventually came to surface as part of the "Comic Relief" sketch "Spider-Plant Man" in 2005, with Atkinson as the title hero, Robinson as Robin, Jim Broadbent as Batman and Rachel Stevens as Mary Jane. "Star Adder" was to be set in space in the future (suggested by Atkinson), though this