Blackadder from this series ranked number three in a list of the top 25 television "putdowns" of the last 40 years by the "Radio Times" magazine: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?" "Blackadder the Third" is set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period known as the Regency. In the series, Edmund Blackadder Esquire is the butler to the Prince Regent, the Prince of Wales (the prince is played by Hugh Laurie as a complete fop and idiot). Despite Edmund's respected intelligence and abilities, he has no
Blackadder George, respectively. Each series was set in a different period of British history, beginning in 1485 and ending in 1917, and comprised six half-hour episodes. The first series, made in 1983, was called "The Black Adder" and was set in the fictional reign of "Richard IV". The second series, "Blackadder II" (1986), was set during the reign of Elizabeth I. "Blackadder the Third" (1987) was set during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the reign of George III, and "Blackadder Goes Forth" (1989) was set in 1917 in the trenches of the Great War. "The Black Adder", the