George (Blackadder)
George is a supporting character who appeared in various adaptations of the BBC sitcom Blackadder, played by Hugh Laurie. Two series saw a different incarnation of the character, because each was set in a different period of history. He was most prominently featured in the third and fourth series. The character was added to the series as a replacement for the Lord Percy Percy character, who did not appear in the third instalment because Tim McInnerny, the actor playing him, feared being typecast. The first incarnation of the character was a caricature of George, Prince of Wales, serving as one of the three main characters of the third series. The second, Lt. The Hon. George Colthurst St Barleigh, was a young officer in the British Army during World War I, a supporting protagonist in the fourth series. Both portrayals were of "dim-witted upper-class twits", who depended greatly on Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson). The character garnered positive responses from critics. Personality Both Prince George and Lt. George are portrayed as dim-witted "upper class twits". The son of King George III, Prince George is represented as a childish, spoiled, bumbling fool who spends money extravagantly (especially on impressive trousers and socks). Lieutenant George, stationed in the trenches of World War I, retains his enthusiastic naiveté, despite being stuck in the trenches for three years, revealing a lack of awareness of the seriousness of his circumstances; Robert Bianco of USA Today stated the character "smiles through in the face of certain death". Both men are portrayed as very incompetent, in "Nob and Nobility", it takes Prince George a week to put on a pair of trousers by himself, eventually putting them on his head. George relies heavily on his butler, Mr. E. Blackadder Esq., even while Blackadder despises George for his stupidity. While George is considered "moronic" and "idiotic", as well as completely self-absorbed, he is helpful and loyal, and is aware he is not very intelligent, describing himself as "thick as a whale omelette". In a 2008 retrospective, co-star Stephen Fry said George's keenness for self-improvement was one of the things he felt made the character likeable. In "Duel and Duality," the final episode of the third series, after a sexual encounter with the Duke of Wellington's nieces, this princely incarnation of George is struck in the chest by a point-blank shot from the vengeful Wellington's pistol and killed, Wellington having become increasingly exasperated with George's behavior, not realizing that George and Blackadder had switched identities. George briefly awakes, believing that he may have a cigarillo case on him that deflected the blow, but when he realises that he must have left the case at home on his dresser, promptly falls dead again in Baldrick's arms; Blackadder, disguised as the Prince Regent in order to take his place in the duel with Wellington, takes George's place to become George IV. George's incarnation as Lieutenant The Honourable George Colthurst St. Barleigh MC, in Blackadder Goes Forth, is a frontline officer. His character draws