10 More TV Villains You Didn't Realise Actually Won

5. General Melchett - Blackadder Goes Forth

Brooklyn Nine-Nine John Kelly
BBC

One of the primary villains of Blackadder's fourth series is General Melchett (Stephen Fry) - an utterly incompetent warmonger whose pig-headed failure to grasp the realities of modern trench warfare makes him send countless men to their unnecessary deaths.

Melchett saves the worst act for last in the series' final episode, when he sends Captain Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson), Lieutenant George (Hugh Laurie), and Captain Darling (Tim McInnerny) over the top of the frontline into a barrage of machine-gun fire, seemingly causing their collective demise.

Melchett of course recuses himself from taking part by dubbing himself "an old general with a dicky heart and a wooden bladder," making him the only survivor of the series' main cast, and one whose careless stupidity receives no real comeuppance whatsoever. Depressingly, it's certainly a true to life outcome, and one that infuriatingly encapsulates the bitter, pointless loss of life en masse that was the First World War.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.