Corporal Punishment (Blackadder)
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| Blackadder Episode | |
| Plan B: Corporal Punishment | |
 Defense Lawyer George |
|
|---|---|
| Air date | 05/09/1989 |
| Writer(s) | Ben Elton Richard Curtis |
| Director | R. Boden |
| Guest star(s) | Stephen Frost,Lee Cornes,Paul-Mark Elliott,Jeremy Gittins |
| ← Prev Captain Cook |
Next → Major Star |
Corporal Punishment is an episode in the fourth season of the BBC sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
Orders for Operation Insanity arrive and Blackadder breaches regulations by eating the messenger. Can the Flanders pigeon murderer avoid the firing squad?
[edit] Plot
Captain Blackadder receives numerous calls via the telephone system, presumably orders to advance. Mocking the apparently bad line, he manages to avoid going over the top. After receiving a telegram from HQ which he dismisses being for a man called Catpain Blackudder, he shoots a carrier pigeon, justifying his actions to a protesting Lieutenant George by saying, "Come on, George. With fifty-thousand men getting killed a week, who's going to miss a pigeon?"
When General Melchett finds out, he is furious - it was his pet (Speckled Jim). After trying to kill Blackadder himself, Captain Darling restrains him. Smugly, he informs Blackadder that, if found guilty in a trial, he will be killed by firing squad. Blackadder, whilst in his cell, talks to a prison guard, saying that he is bound to get off because he has sent for lawyer Bob Massingbird, who, Blackadder claims, managed to get a man off another case, despite him being seen by thirteen people stabbing a victim and then exclaiming he was glad he had killed the victim.
However, thanks to Private Baldrick getting some letters mixed up, the message falls into the wrong hands, and George turns up as Blackadder's defence. Blackadder irritably tells him that mindless optimism will not contribute to the case. Soon, the inevitable happens. Blackadder is found guilty, and is mocked by the courtroom. He meets his firing squad, a cheery bunch of men who seem to take pride in murdering people for the law. Blackadder sends Baldrick to George, whose uncle Rupert has just been made Minister of War. Hours before the firing squad take their positions, Baldrick and George get drunk and forget to send a telegram.
In the end, Rupert sends a telegram anyway, knowing that Blackadder is a close friend of his nephew's. Out of revenge for apparently ignoring his orders, Blackadder signs Baldrick and George up for 'Operation Certain-Death', a mission into No-Man's Land, after receiving a call from Captain Darling on the "now repaired" trench communications system.
Blackadder hangs up the line, leans in close to his now frightened subordinates and tells them: "God works very quick these days!"
[edit] Significance
[edit] Trivia
In his autobiography Moab is My Washpot, Stephen Fry recalls an instant when a man shouted "The Flanders pigeon-murderer!" at him on the street. Fry had no idea what this meant (he had forgotten about this episode) and feared he was going to be attacked.
