The Black Seal
1498. Humiliations at court finally lead Edmund to attempt to overthrow the King. He dismisses Baldrick and Percy and sets out to form The Black Seal, a band consisting of the six most evil men in the land. With their help he hopes to gain the Crown. But Edmund’s new friends are not really the type you can trust in a pinch…
written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson
with additional dialogue by William Shakespeare
directed by Martin Shardlow
music by Howard GoodallGuest Cast: John Carlisle (Murdered Lord), Bert Parnaby (Cain), Roy Evans (Abel), Forbes Collins (Trusting Father), Des Webb (Person of unrestricted growth), John Barrard (Retired Morris Dancer), Perry Bevon (Pigeon Vendor), John Hallam (Sir Wilfred Death), Roger Sloman (Three-Fingered Pete), Patrick Malahide (Guy de Glastonbury), Ron Cook (Sean, the Irish Bastard), Paul Brooke (Friar Bellows), Big Mick (Jack Large), Rik Mayall (Mad Gerald), Patrick Allen (Philip of Burgandy, The Hawk)
Notes: Edmund’s wife, Princess Leia, is notably not among those killed at the end of this episode. While Leia was likely around ten at the time of her marriage (1492), she would be about sixteen by the time of this episode, a more than reasonable child-bearing age for the day, thus assuring the Blackadder line to follow.
Cain and Abel (portrayed by Bert Parnaby and Roy Evans) have had a hard time. Three years earlier (in Witchsmeller Pursuivant) they were still healthy, if stupid. By 1498, they’re both blind.
Rik Mayall returned for appearances in Blackadder II (Bells), Blackadder Goes Forth (Private Plane), and Blackadder: Back & Forth. The role of Mad Gerald was credited in this episode to “himself.” Mayall is best known for his alternative comedy work in such TV series as The Young Ones, Bottom and The New Statesmen. (He also starred in Drop Dead Fred (1991), but let’s not hold that against him.)
LogBook entry by Philip R. Frey
Guest Cast: John Vickery (Neroon), Grace Una (Alisa Beldon), Joshua Cox (Tech #2), Richard Henry (Security Man), Patrick O’ Brien (Cart Owner), Marianne Robertson (Tech #1)
The seventh Doctor is drawn to a jungle world, where he rescues a hapless bystander and discovers an elderly couple nearby. The couple have a unique relationship based on a mutual loathing that seems like it could become murderous at any moment – and they both have very dark secrets to hide. The fifth Doctor, meanwhile, finds himself locked out of the TARDIS, which has materialized aboard a doomed British ship in the North Atlantic. The ship is torpedoed by a German U-boat, and the TARDIS is lost at sea. The Doctor, along with an Irish woman from the British vessel, drifts along with the debris until taken aboard the German sub as a spy. Elsewhere, on the starliner Edifice, the sixth Doctor’s TARDIS arrives, coinciding with an experiment being performed on a time-sensitive creature known as the Temperon. But shortly after the experiment fails, the entire crew – with the exception of its android helmsman and a waitress who appears to have survived through pure luck – is killed, and the Doctor must find out why. Each incarnation of the Doctor is unaware that he is facing the same threat, but in different places and times. And each Doctor has a piece of the puzzle that could save their besieged home planet of Gallifrey.
The Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive in Tibet in 1917, just in time for a cricket match the Doctor intends to take part in. But he’s soon bowled over by evidence of a great evil at work – a man from a lost expedition appears and kisses Erimem’s hand, and later she is engulfed by a black storm cloud that seems to be able to think for itself. Before the Doctor can reach her, Erimem is snatched away by the cloud, which then vanishes. The same cloud had been spotted earlier on photos of the Himalayans, and had been dismissed, but now the Doctor is racing against time to find out what kind of menace is being dealt with. It may threaten all of Earth, and the Doctor may have to choose between saving humanity or saving his friend.
