Four series, four centuries, one family of Blackadders — each generation a little cleverer and a little more thwarted than the last. The comedy moves from the Wars of the Roses to the Elizabethan court, the Regency and the trenches of the First World War, with Rowan Atkinson at the centre and Tony Robinson as the reliably filthy Baldrick. Written largely by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, it is remembered above all for the final scene of 'Blackadder Goes Forth', which abandons the joke entirely.