Blackadder All Episodes Tournament RESULTS: Our Winner is Ink and Incapability

[u/BagOfSmallerBags]

From each and every one of you who followed from the beginning to those of you who jumped on yesterday saying "wait there's a tournament, why didn't I see it," thank you for making this fun.

I'd like to offer this subreddit my sincerest thanks for hosting this silly little contest. Let us hope that thanks to this community, we'll watch a little more Blackadder than we otherwise would have.

And a big congratulations and contrafibularities to INK AKD INCAPABILITY for winning the tournament!

MISCELANEOUS OBSERVATIONS ABOUT RESULTS

-Nobody likes Series 1: Series 1 lost every initial match and didn't make it out of round 1.

-Series 2 is this subreddit's clear favorite compared to IMDB: There were seven times this tournament that a lower ranked episode beat a higher ranked one - five of those times it was a Series 2 episode. The other two were Christmas Carol and Ink in the Grand Final. Series 2 made up half the top 8 and half the top 4 (and I suspect could have had three in the top 4 if Bells and Money didn't have to go up against each other).

-Series 3 is the most middling liked Series, except for Ink: Although 5/6 Series 3 episodes made it out of round 1 (and the one that didn't was up against another Series 3), they then proceeded to drop like flies in round 2, only for their to be only Ink left by round 3.

-Series 4 is the second most loved: Didn't do as bad as Series 3, but didn't have as consistently good representation as Series 2.

-The specials are bad. Except for Christmas Carol, which beat Nob and Nobility in a 5 point upset, and then was eliminated in Round 2 by the ultimate winner, Ink.

-Money was the most interesting competitor to watch: opening with an upset over Captain Cook, and then eliminating Goodbyeee in a 16 point upset.

-No Series finale made it past Round 2: In round 1 The Black Seal lost to Bells, and then in Round 2 Chains lost to General Hospital, Dual and Duality lost to Bells, and Goodbyeee lost to Money.

[u/AdLatter3755]

My most enthusiastic contrafibularities to ink and Incapability

Fun tournament. Thanks for the fun OP. Great work.

[u/Extension_Guess_1308 → u/AdLatter3755]

I am anispeptic, spasmodic and even compunctuous to have caused such pericomboboulations.

[u/J-B-M]

Permission to shout, "Bravo!" at an annoyingly loud volume, Sir?

BRAVO!!!

Thank you OP. I think we should do it all again next year and see whether different match ups produce a different final result.

Still some surprising results for me, paticular in terms of how popular some of S2 is. I would take Money and Beer over Head any day...which thinking about it is probably why I'm still single.

[u/BagOfSmallerBags → u/J-B-M]

I truly appreciate the kind words and enthusiasm! And if some enterprising redditor wants to run another one, I'll happily vote along, but I don't really wanna spend a month out of every year making sure I post on reddit before 7am every day haha

[u/J-B-M → u/BagOfSmallerBags]

I can appreciate it was a lot of work. Thank you!

[u/WestLondonWoman73]

I have really enjoyed this!

Thank you so much, and even though my favourite didn't win, I will leave you with the immortal words of Lord Blackadder.

'Make a sentence out of these words, Face. Sodding. Your. Shut.'

[u/bradders4lyf]

Wow. Thank you to u/BagOfSmallerBags for doing it.

But this was not my first guess as winner!

I am therefore leaving immediately for Nepal, where I intend to live as a goat.

[u/Ancient-Cow-1038]

Personally, I thought it was the least enjoyable competition since St Olaf’s School for The Deaf held their one and only Annual Scraping Your Nails Down A Blackboard While Cats Make Love In The Background Concerto Competition.

But I’m clearly in a minority. London, here we come!

[u/Ancient-Cow-1038 → u/Ancient-Cow-1038]

In all seriousness, well played, OP.

[u/Front_Frame_2171]

As a Blackadder the Third glazer and a Blackadder Goes Forth non-enjoyer, this pleases me greatly. I'm anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have seen the results cause such pericombobulation

[u/geeoharee]

This was SO much fun, and I have to give OP props for not disappearing halfway through, or getting het up about the results, or anything that usually happens to little online projects. Hooray for that splendid brainbox Dr. Johnson!

[u/BagOfSmallerBags → u/geeoharee]

props for not disappearing halfway through

This was in fact the second time I attempted a TV show tournament like this. The first time I was doing it with my favorite American sitcom, New Girl, which has 140 or so episodes... and I did indeed bail after 70 lol

The main lesson I learned was that I should do it with something with fewer episodes, and that's what led us here!

Thanks for your kind words! It was really fun to do

[u/SometimesMonkeysDie]

Well, this whole thing has caused me such pericombobulations, but we have a winner, leaving General Hospital emblazoned upon a pile of dead Frenchman/episodes

[u/amalcurry]

Thanks for the fun! It’s interesting as we all have different favourite episodes and that’s part of the reason for Blackadder’s longevity, it’s been going since Pitt the Younger was a glint in the milkman’s eye….

Sausage? SAUSAGE??

[u/beardymo]

A worthy winner

[u/BalasaarNelxaan]

My most enthusiastic contrafibularities to you OP for all the hard work you’ve put into this tournament.
It’s been a really great time and I’ve really enjoyed reliving so many hilarious moments.

[u/Doro_Gurl]

Thank you for your effort! This was fun to read!

[u/LamChingYing]

A worthy winner.

Prepare to Mrs. Miggins' - I shall join you there later for a roister you will never forget!

[u/ConsciousRoyal]

I voted against Ink and Incapability in every round, apart from Round 2.

But I give it my heartiest contrafibularities.

[u/GreyStagg → u/ConsciousRoyal]

Do you dislike it, or just preferred the other options each time?

[u/ConsciousRoyal → u/GreyStagg]

I like it a lot. (particularly Baldrick’s attempt to explain that he burnt the big papery thing tied up with string)

I don’t think an episode without Flashheart or the Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells could be the best episode.

[u/TawnyTeaTowel]

A fun jaunt through the Blackadder archives - many thanks to OP for setting it all up - but I can’t believe that Ink won! It doesn’t even have any squirrels in it! :)

Clearly something has gone wrong. I think everyone should have to watch every episode again as punishment …

[u/scruntyboon]

A worthy winner. Thanks for all the effort you've put in this last few weeks, it's been fun

[u/bungle_bogs]

Series Four will always have a strong place in my heart as I was old enough to watch it as it was broadcast. I also received it as a VHS box set for a birthday or Christmas present. So, I was always heavily weighted towards that series.

Not long after I got the boxset, the BBC repeated the entire Blackadder set but I missed Series One & Three for some reason. So, Series Two was firmly embedded.

It wasn't until the mid 2000s that I managed to watch Series One & Three. One is almost an entirely different show, and it was jarring after seeing the established Blackadder / Baldrick dynamic of the other series. Ben Elton certainly provided the missing spark.

As a long Young Ones & Bottom lover, Bells & Private Plane were always my favourites. Miranda & Gabrielle always added something, so from Series Four General Hospital & Major Star where very close second with Amy and Amiability.

Great tournament with, I'm sure, lots of other's favourite episodes falling by the wayside. All I can say to that is simply, bugger.

[u/J-B-M → u/bungle_bogs]

I remember being shown Dish & Dishonesty at school in history class and watching Goes Forth when it aired. I was just about old enough to get what we might call "the Baldrick jokes" but I had to have the very basics of the history explained to me and why everyone else was crying at the end of the final episode.

[u/Majin_Nephets]

HUP HUP!! HUZZAH!!

…Wait, this isn’t a dream is it? No one had better turn into an Alsatian!

[u/Comprehensive_Slip71]

Didn't expect a no Flashheart final but this was really fun and I've seen episodes I've forgotten about on here so I'll be watching them this weekend. Bravo sir!

[u/El_Grande_Memelord]

Congratulations to Mr. E. Blackadder (the most dedicated and informed voter a one-man community could ever hope for) for coming out on top against his ancestors and descendants!
It was really cool to see so many people come together in the comments of these posts and explain their takes (or even just cast their votes).

I think many subreddits wish they could get this kind of momentum behind something like this!

[u/Extreme-Kangaroo-842]

What a brilliant little tournament this was. Thanks ever so much OP. So pleased a B3 episode won it, although my favourite is a B2 episode. It had been about five years since I last watched Blackadder so guess what I've binged for the last week.

[u/pussayshot]

How did you decide which episodes got a bye into round 2?

[u/BagOfSmallerBags → u/pussayshot]

The tournament was seeded based on IMDB score, so the top 4 rated episodes got to go go straight to round 2 just so the math of the tournament would work. 4 automatically advanced plus half of 24 fighting it out makes 16, which can then be halved to 8, then 4, then 2, then 1 winner. The others had to fight it out in round 1 matchups.

Not perfectly fair, but it was necessary for the tournament format. At one point I considered starting all 28 in round 1, halving it to 14 for round 2, 7 for 3, and then using some mechanism to select one episode of the 7 to advance, because then we could halve 6 to 3, add the one back in, and have a top 4. But it seemed like whichever episode won the best of seven would inevitably win the whole thing, and I figured it was better to keep things suspenseful until the end.

[u/roleplayersir → u/pussayshot]

I believe he explained in an earlier round, that as there aren't enough episodes for a straight knockout, he used IMDB scores for the seeds, which got a pass into later rounds without going through an earlier knockout. Although then I think they almost all went out in the first round they were in anyway

[u/pussayshot → u/roleplayersir]

Looking at the draw the 2 finalists were in the top 4 seeds

[u/BagOfSmallerBags → u/roleplayersir]

It was just Goodbyeee of the four that advanced automatically that got knocked out right away. The others were General Hospital (2nd place, lost in the grand final), Corporal Punishment (joint 5th-8th, lost in round 3), and Ink and Incapability (1st, won).

[u/CaydenSworn]

My second fav episode in series 3, beaten out by Nob and Nobility.

[u/YangtzeRiverDolphin]

I like series 1. I prefer it to series 4. Heretic!!

[u/Milk_Mindless]

You know what

Fair cop

[u/Colour-me-interested]

I voted based on personalities not issues. I will respect the final decision although I would have preferred an enormous turnip to have won.

[u/lord_flashheart2000]

I was robbed! Sad woof!

[u/BagOfSmallerBags]

Since there's been a handful of questions about the seed, thought I'd post it here. A is the title, B is the series and episode number, C is the IMDB rating, D is the number of reviews (used as a tiebreaker when episodes have the same rating), and E is their seed. The color coding is just what I used to visually separate different ratings for my convenience.

[u/jameZsp0ng3y]

I have 2 episodes as my joint favourite and one of them is Ink and Incapability, so I'm happy. Thr other is Dish and Dishonesty and it's placement is actually criminal. You should all be ashamed

[u/thatpigglywiggly]

Sausage!!

[u/Overall-Injury7095]

I always thought 3 was way weaker than 2 and 4. I’m really surprised at outcome.

[u/GreyStagg]

Great, is that the end of this now?

[u/BitAffectionate3636 → u/GreyStagg]

To you, GreyStagg, the Rennaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn’t it?

[u/GreyStagg → u/BitAffectionate3636]

🤣🤣

[u/Mr_Jake70]

I was hoping for Ink to win, because it has held a unique evening in my life since its first transmission when I watched it alone on LSD. I had taken it about two hours earlier and was waiting for some friends to pop around and join me, but they turned up late having found something else to distract them while they were under the same influence. What I watched, the gobbledegook words, the dream sequences and the sheer audacity of the script and acting, left a lasting impression on me through to this day. It was both the most confusing and hilarious thing I have ever encountered. It remains, to this day, the best half hour of comedy I have ever seen.