On a production level this second season, produced 3 years later seems actually less sophisticated; cheap looking sets, much more of a standard sit-com look.
But this is a sit com ala Fawlty Towers, weird, whip-smart, subversive and very dark. While I can't say for me that it quite stands up to the greatness of Fawlty Towers or Monty Python, the two shows to which it is inevitably compared, it has a ton of very funny moments, and the acting is top notch.
It's 100 years plus since series one, and Blackadder is no longer the weaselly immoral wimpy swine of the first series. He's now a handsome. dashing weaselly immoral swine, a favorite of the vaguely insane Queen Elizabeth --that is when she's not threatening to execute him.
It's a lot of fun to see Atkinson in this very different, non Mr. Bean persona, and he pulls it off wonderfully. And Hugh Laurie is hysterical in two completely different guest roles, while Miranda Richardson as Queen Elizabeth displays a flair for goofy silly physical comedy one would never suspect from her body of work.
Very worth a view, even if you were iffy on series one.
But this is a sit com ala Fawlty Towers, weird, whip-smart, subversive and very dark. While I can't say for me that it quite stands up to the greatness of Fawlty Towers or Monty Python, the two shows to which it is inevitably compared, it has a ton of very funny moments, and the acting is top notch.
It's 100 years plus since series one, and Blackadder is no longer the weaselly immoral wimpy swine of the first series. He's now a handsome. dashing weaselly immoral swine, a favorite of the vaguely insane Queen Elizabeth --that is when she's not threatening to execute him.
It's a lot of fun to see Atkinson in this very different, non Mr. Bean persona, and he pulls it off wonderfully. And Hugh Laurie is hysterical in two completely different guest roles, while Miranda Richardson as Queen Elizabeth displays a flair for goofy silly physical comedy one would never suspect from her body of work.
Very worth a view, even if you were iffy on series one.