User reviews

Edmund Blackadder is one of the greatest characters British television has ever produced . He`s cruel , selfish and oh so cunning and it`s a bit of a shock to see him undergo a character change and be the kindest man in all of England . But don`t worry , in this reworking of Dickens A CHRISTMAS CAROL Blackadder soon turns into the anti hero we all know and hate

This is a side splitting Christmas feast for fans of the BLACKADDER series and we get flashbacks to series two and three of the historical sit-com and a glimpse of how the show might have looked if it continued into the space age . To be honest I don`t think a science fiction version of BLACKADDER would have worked well but I did find the concept interesting and highly amusing at the same time .

Don`t worry if you watch it in the height of summer , you`ll still find it funny

This is one of two individual "film episodes" of Blackadder, separate to the series, although each of the two films has references to the series.

Out of Blackadder Back and Forth and this, I prefer Back and Forth, but this is still a hilarious delight to watch. At the beginning, Ebenezer Blackadder is the opposite of Ebenezer Scrooge, being nice to everyone - even Baldrick, surprisingly enough. He is so kind he ends up giving away all their Christmas presents and food for the next day - and their mini Christmas tree (the people who do this include Queen Victoria and Albert, who dress up as peasants to meet Blackadder). That night, the ghost of Christmas past, present and future comes to meet Blackadder and congratulates him for being very nice - unlike his ancestors. The ghost shows Blackadder some things that have happened and will happen, transforming Blackadder in unusual ways...

The cast:

The lovely, kind Blackadder (:-O ???): Rowan Atkinson. The sweet, brainless Baldrick: Tony Robinson. Lord Melchett: Stphen Fry. The happy, bumbling Queen Vicky: Miriam Margoyles. The silly Albert: Jim Broadbent. The jolly, magical ghost of Christmas past, present and future: Robbie Coltrane. + people from the second and third parts of the series.

I recommend this to anyone who likes Blackadder, anyone who likes good humour and people who like Christmas! Enjoy! :-)

8 and a half out of ten.

I don't know how many versions there are of the famous Christmas Carol. The oldest versions and the one from Disney are the best I think. Some more recent versions are all terrible, but this one from 88 is an excellent one. Of course, it seems that there is a group of fans devided into two. Fans of American humor, fans of Brittis humor. I tend to prefer the last one. This version of Blackadder is Brittish humor at its best, and I never can get enough of it.

A fantastic idea, this one. Take the old chestnut 'A Christmas Carol', give it a shake-up, and turn it on its head.

Ebenezer Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson in fine form as ever) is a good guy, who gives away anything to anyone, and is truly chock-full of the Christmas spirit. Time for the Spirit of Christmas (a rip-roaring turn from Robbie Coltrane) to work his magic, invoke the spirits of Ebenezer's ancestors and descendants, and inform him of the errors of his ways.

We're reminded of Blackadder's former incarnations, in Tudor and Regency times, and of the cunning plans and twists of the long-gone relatives. We meet again with the likes of Queenie (Miranda Richardson), Melchett (Stephen Fry), Nursie (Patsy Byrne), and Prince George (Hugh Laurie). And of course the Cratchit character - Baldrick, who else! - suffers more and more as the story unfolds.

A scary turn from Miriam Margoyles and Jim Broadbent (Victoria and Albert), and a mind-boggling look into the distant future completes the transformation.

Not shown often enough, this is a real plum-pudding of a piece.

A grand reversal of "The Christmas Carol".

Very funny, but *perhaps* viewing the BlackAdder series is a prerequisite so you know the characters. (Well at least the first 3 series.)

Amanda Richardson does the switch from Elizabeth I to the future perfectly.

And BlackAdder's progression, vs. Baldrick's progression are shown well.

An annual event here!

A very funny inversion of both 'A Christmas Carol' and the other Blackadder shows. Here, "Ebenezer Blackadder" is as kind and generous as a man can be, the opposite of every Scrooge (and other Black Adder) we've seen. But then he gets a visit from the ghost of the Christmas spirit, who shows him how awful and selfish his various ancestors were.

On the other hand, they don't seem to be taken advantage of quite the way he is...

A spirited, funny, and black satire, with terrific work as usual from the whole group; Rowan Atkinson. Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Robbie Coltrane, Miriam Margolies and Jim Broadbent. Quite a cast! It doesn't all work, and the very ending is a bit predictable, but there lots of laughs and twisted humor along the way.

'Black Adder's Christmas Carol' is kind of the reversed version of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. Where in that story a bad man becomes good, here a good man becomes bad because being good has not brought him any fortune. That man of course is Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson).

When the spirit of Christmas (Robbie Coltrane) comes to visit the good hearted Blackadder he shows him his ancestors. They were wicked men, but fortunate as well. When he looks into the future and sees that he will become a loser if he stays good, he decides to become bad instead.

Rowan Atkinson is funny as always, Tony Robinson as Baldrick has the best moments together with Miranda Richardson as Queen Elizabeth and Miriam Margolyes as Queen Victoria. A great thing for fans, enjoyable for people who are not.

There's not much I can add here that likely hasn't been said before by astute IMDb reviewers. I accidentally became aware of the Blackadder series in 1988, and Blackadder's Christmas Carol was my introduction. At the time I remember thinking I had discovered the illegitimate Son of Monty Python. Soon afterwards I learned that Blackadder was one of Britain's most watched sitcoms. Why hadn't I heard of it before then? It didn't matter. I was hooked.

Rowan Atkinson transcends his much beloved and cloyingly annoying Mr. Bean character to assume the role of Ebenezer Blackadder in a superbly well written and performed inversion of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Blackadder (Atkinson) is the nicest, most giving man in all England. His terrible relatives take full advantage of him, and even his only friend, the ever faithful Mr Baldrick (Tony Robinson), can't seem to convince the trusting Blackadder that his acquiescent philanthropy is ruining their business and that they will soon be as penniless as the charities they support.

But this is all going to change. "No More Mr. Nice Guy." Don't ask because I'm not telling. Regardless, you are going to absolutely LOVE this episode, and if you're like me, you'll eventually watch the entire Blackadder series.

No spoilers here as usual but I will reveal that there are some wonderful over the top performances by Hugh Laurie as Prince George/Prince Pigmot, Miranda Richardson as Queen Elizabeth/Queen Asphyxia XIX, and Robbie Coltrane (that's right, the same comedian better known as Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter film series) who plays The Spirit of Christmas.

I find that hard to believe! Anyone, allow me to rectify this. Blackadder's Christmas Carol has some of the funniest material of all the Blackadders. Set in Victorian times (Jim Broadbeat looks stunningly like Prince Albert), there's a neat turnabout this time - Ebenezer Blackadder is the nicest, most entirely selfless man in the whole of England! A visit from Robbie Coltrane, hilarious as the ghost of Christmas who decided to visit someone who's all ready nice for a change, shows Blackadder the naughty behaviour of some of his ancestors, not to mention the future. But Ebenezer draws the wrong conclusion. You can sense the relish in Rowan Atkinson's voice as he proclaims "Bad guys have all the fun!" - what he means is, playing bad guys is all the fun. Don't miss this one.

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.

Counting down the days to Christmas,I started looking for films/TV X-Mas Specials to watch. Looking on Netflix UK for themed flicks,I stumbled on the Blackadder special being on the site, which led to me once again seeing Blackadder's carol.

View on the special:

Made as they were starting to plan the 4th (and final) series, the script by Ben Elton & Richard Curtis shows the duo working like a well-oiled machine,from the opening send- up of the tradition Dickensian Christmas setting, to the hilarious episodic ghostly visions of X-Mas from the past and the future.

Merrily skipping over the wholesomeness which clogs up a number of Christmas specials, the writers cleverly give a moral sting in their loose take on A Christmas Carol, as Blackadder decides to no longer be a pushover, only to discover that he has slammed the door on the chance for some Christmas cheer.

Reunited with outstanding regular co-stars Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson, a proto-Hagrid Robbie Coltrane, future Oscar winner Jim Broadbent and Hugh Laurie doing his future "House" US accent, Tony Robinson and Rowan Atkinson give fantastic performances, with Robinson hitting Baldricks mix of dim and disappointment over the lack of any Christmas presents, and Rowan Atkinson joyfully tearing up his initial morals, in Blackadder's reading of A Christmas Carol.

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."

Full of great lines and moments, this Christmas Special provides a lovely novel take on the much adapted Charles Dickens tale, by having Blackadder go from nice guy to Scrooge.

It also allows the creative team through flashbacks to revisit some of the other incarnations of the miser throughout history, which leads to some nice results.

There's so much sharp writing in the episode, with every line for the most part being a winner.

I wasn't keen on the look into the future, I didn't find that overly funny, but on the whole this proved to be an enjoyable piece of comedy to watch over the festive period.

Blackadder is back and Dickens has him! Join us as we look in on kind-hearted Ebenezer Blackadder and his assistant Baldrick. He is the biggest patsy in London, until he is visited by a Chrismas spirit (who has been imbibing in a few spirits of his own!). A look at his past and future sets Blackadder on his true course.

The gang is all here for this one, with all of our favorite haracters and actors back for the fun. The only bad part is Baldricks costume in the future. Boy, that'll give you nightmares on Christmas!

If you're tired of false sentiment and prefer the Grinch before his heart grows, catch this one. Bah, humbug, indeed!

While a good deal of the franchise is wildly amusing and entertaining... this definitely ranks high up there. This is one of my favorites, absolutely. Twisting the concept of the heart-warming(but in all honesty at times somewhat nauseatingly merry) classic with the cynicism, bitterness and cruelty of these, this features some of the very best verbal humor of the bunch. One particular line forced me to pause the showing simply to allow the pure genius and satirical depth of it to sink in. It's a line so astoundingly written that it should be repeated to whomever it befits to speak it to. I dare any fan of British humor to listen to it and not break out in loud laughter. It was a real treat to see new scenes with the cast of the second and third seasons, and they're hilarious. With a similar(if not same) moral to it as the Dickens' original(though luckily presented with little, if any, sentimentality; instead with usual bite of these series'), this has the famous story turn 180 degrees. The plot is appropriate in length and tone. Acting is great, all-round. The characters, as with most of these, are well-written and help provide social commentary. Sadly McInnerny still is not present, though he is back in the next installment. The humor is excellent, there are a rather impressive amount of laughs(seriously, often one a second or so) compared to the running time. There was some gags that were a tad too simple. Still, the jokes are almost invariably amazing and well-delivered, with impeccable comical timing. The pacing is just about perfect, I haven't been bored for a moment in any of my, by now, four or five viewings. Editing and cinematography leave little to be desired. I recommend this to any fan of these and/or Rowan Atkinson. If you belong in either of those groups... don't miss this for the world. 9/10

Essentially a made-for-Christmas Blackadder short, made between Seasons 3 and 4 of the TV series.

Result is a very funny version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, complete with the usual biting dialogue and cleverness.

Not as good as the TV series - the confines of Dickens' plot limit it to an extent, plus, being Christmas, the writers were restricted in how cynical and snarky they could be, I guess. However, it is still very much worth the watch.