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
Head (Blackadder) decomposed. However, Lord Percy notices that the head that Blackadder found on Farrow's spike is not actually Lord Farrow's, but rather that of Lord Ponsonby, another death row inmate whose execution was scheduled for Friday, meaning that Baldrick had killed the wrong man. Blackadder is relieved, until he remembers that the Queen is on her way to the prison at that very moment to visit Lord Ponsonby, and he hurries there just in time to pretend to be Ponsonby for the Queen, just as he had done with Farrow, despite Ponsonby only having one leg and a speech impediment. Head