Dom Robinson reviews
Black Adder The Third
The Historic Third Series
Distributed by
Producer:
Screenplay:
Richard Curtis and Ben Elton
Music:
Cast:
Mr Blackadder: Rowan Atkinson
Baldrick: Tony Robinson
Prince Regent: Hugh Laurie
Mrs Miggins: Helen Atkinson-Wood
If I was to say that Black Adder The Third
was the third series of Black Adder, that may throw up no surprises for
anyone. Now entering the Regency period (1760-1815), Edmund Blackadder (Rowan
Atkinson) is accompanied once again by his dimwitted servant Baldrick
(Tony Robinson) and both serve under the "thick as a whale omelette"
Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie), with occasional interruptions from Mrs
Miggins (Helen Atkinson-Wood).
Six more episodes are presented, starting with Dish and Dishonesty where
the new Prime Minister Pitt The Younger (Simon Osborne) wants the
Prince Regent out and the only way out is to control the single-voter
consistuency of Dunny-on-the-Wold is to make Baldrick its MP, but he'll have
some competition from Pitt The Even Younger; Ink and Incapability finds
the arrival of Doctor Johnson (Robbie Coltrane) with his manuscript for
a new tome entitled, the dictionary. However, a slight accident involving fire
leaves Edmund with the unenviable task of rewriting the entire work; and
in the Nob and Nobility the French Revolution brings about The Scarlet
Pimpernel and two poncy aristocrats (Tim McInnery and Nigel Planer)
to the Prince's side, much to Edmund's disgust.
Sense and Senility is the episode where anarchists are out to kill the
Prince, so a couple of idiotic actors are hired to help out, but beware of
mentioning the real name of "the Scottish play", that is Macbeth. In Amy
and Amiability, the Prince must marry for financial convenience
but when everything goes all to cock, Edmund changes career to become a
highwayman with Baldrick as his horse; and in Duel and Duality after
the Prince has slept with the Duke of Wellington's two nieces, it is Black Adder
who finds himself in a duel in place of his master.
The picture is better than the first two discs, with a few scratches on the
print from time to time but nothing major. It's presented in its original
fullscreen ratio and the average bitrate falls between 5.5-6.0Mb/s,
depending on which episode you're watching. The soundtrack is in stereo
this time, but again it's purely functional, giving clear dialogue.
36 chapters spread out the series, the menus have some animation showing
clips from the episodes but only the main one has the theme tune, while
English-only applies to both the dialogue and subtitles.
As with the second series, there are no extras, but it's still worth
£19.99 for the full series.
FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
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OVERALL
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.
The following is a list of all the Black Adder DVDs reviewed online to date :
1999 The Black Adder
2001 Black Adder II
2001 Black Adder The Third
2001 Black Adder Goes Forth
2001 Black Adder: Back And Forth
2002 Blackadder's Christmas Carol
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
