3. Blackadder in Blackadder
The various incarnations of Blackadder tended to suffer considerably from the comedic trope of having their plans for wealth and advancement blow up in their faces by the end of the episode. The Blackadder to finally buck this trend was the Regency version, a shrewd and malicious professional bastard who spent his days as butler to the foppish, dim-witted Prince Regent doing everything he could to benefit himself at the expense of his clueless master. After a series of humiliations he finally succeeded in escaping his servile status in the most daredevil way possible, actually stealing the Princes identity (thanks to the Kings oblivious lunacy) and becoming heir to the throne of Great Britain, a glorious fate utterly undeserved after all his caddish behaviour. Still, it was oddly fitting that a character whose acerbic commentary on the absurdities of British history spanned generations should eventually become the representative of the very country he so mercilessly mocked. However, the time-travelling epilogue Blackadder Back and Forth revealed what a royal Blackadder dynasty would actually look like; an absolute monarchy with the idiotic Baldrick as a tame Prime Minister, and British freedom presumably stifled forever.