Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Masterpiece!

This episode had basically everything you'd want from a Blackadder episode. I mean, all I've seen so far is some quality humour and characters, but this episode had everything. It had nostalgia to the older seasons because we visited older characters and events, it had a tremendously good story which is basically the opposite of 'A Christmas Carol', it had great new characters including a completely different Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) and it had a ton of hilarious Blackadder jokes.Honestly this is my favourite episode so far. Maybe the length had something to do with it as well; it did add more time for development and plot. I didn't expect this one to be so good, as it has a relatively low rating for a Blackadder episode. It's not a perfect TV episode by far, but in my opinion it's a perfect Blackadder episode.One last thing to add is that I found the entrance of Robbie Coltrane's character, the Spirit of Christmas, highly amusing. It was almost exactly like Hagrid's entrance in Harry Potter, and it even has the same actor, but it is years before Harry Potter. I just found this little thing great and wanted to point it out for the benefit of whoever reads this.

Do they give O Levels in British History? You would certainly need one to to get all the jokes in the Blackadder series.Fortunately, to watch this special, you just need to know that Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) was a nasty SOB. Atkinson plays three Edmunds her as well as Ebenezer, and they are all SOBs.We get Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) as the Spirit of Christmas, Dr. House (Hugh Laurie), Stephen Fry, and Jim Broadbent. If you are looking to add some laughs to you Christmas season, you can't go wrong here.Of course, the lesson learned is that "Bad guys have all the fun."

Why hasn't the BBC shown this more often at Christmas instead of constantly reshowing the 1973 Morecambe and Wise Christmas show. It's great and I never saw it until this Christmas just past. It features Erkan Mustafa in his best known role other than Roland Browning (his only role other than Roland Browning!). Rowan Atkinson is great as usual. It is interesting to see Jim Broadbent when he was relatively unknown. He doesn't really look any different. Robbie Coltrane plays the ghost of Christmas and his first appearance is, we know now, an uncanny prediction of things to come. When he first appears he kicks the door down and he has long hair and a shaggy beard. And this was even before J K Rowling had thought of Hagrid. But here he hasn't come to tell Ebenezer Blackadder that he has a place at Hogwarts. The visions of the future are a bit reminiscent of 1970s Dr Who. I just love Blackadder's inevitable comeuppance at the end.

This was a welcome addition to the original four series of Black Adder. It is strong on humor and it being one episode, it doesn't get stale or have any comedic lulls.This is sort of an "anti-Christmas Carol" where this Black Adder is the complete opposite of all the previous ones. He is unbelievable kind and giving and as a result, everyone takes complete advantage of him. After being used by pretty much everyone, one of the Christmas Ghosts accidentally comes to his home. Realizing his mistake, the ghost praises Black Adder for his goodness BUT makes the mistake of staying to talk with Black Adder. He accidentally agrees to show him his past incarnations (such as Edmund from "Black Adder 2" and the future Master of the Universe Black Adder). From this accident, Black Adder realizes being nice is for the birds and his future is bright, indeed, if he is 100% selfish and rotten! Nice moral to the story, huh?I think one of the reasons I love this show so much is that there have been too many versions of "A Christmas Carol"--and few of them are that inspired to make them worth making in the first place. After all, we have some excellent versions of the original story and I think the only reason we could use more is if the story is DIFFERENT and not the same old same old--and "Blackadder's Christmas Carol" certainly is different!