Normally one would expect that there are only two situations genuinely requiring the tabulation of one's "greatest of all time" lists with any real import (other than, you know, drunken arguments at the pub): one, being close to death, and two, writing for Time Magazine.

As you can see, I fall into neither category, but recently - perhaps due to rearranging my DVD collection as I move house, or having no working television and thus being given pause to mentally stroll through television's annals - I have been going over TV in my head and have come to the conclusion that the greatest TV show (or season) of all time, at least in my books, is Blackadder Goes Forth.



If you want to get more specific, then the final episode of the final season, Goodbyeee... (I choose to ignore the regrettable one-off 1999 special, Blackadder: Back & Forth), which is - despite the lack of eye-watering violence we now seem to need in order to demonstrate The Horror Of War™ - for my money one of the most effective, poignant and confronting takes on war and humanity (or lack thereof in the context of the former) committed to film.



(Briefly, I choose to refrain from posting excerpts from that episode here purely because, though I'm sure it doesn't take much to guess what the outcome of a story set in the trenches of World War I might entail, I would hope that anyone who hasn't seen it would prefer to watch both the season and episode in its entirety. If not, it's available on YouTube but I WILL NOT ENABLE YOU.)

That particular episode has ended up in the higher echelons of numerous polls, though given that's not always an indicator of a show's worth, so all you really need to know is that the show features writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton at their sharpest, and cast members Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Tim McInnerny at the top of their collective game.



I can't think of a show I have quoted more widely from in all aspects of my life and writing, except perhaps The Simpsons, and I'm inclined to think - though the aforementioned Time may disagree with me - that by nature of its being animated, the two can share equal standing.

Recently I tested the waters along the "best ever" lines with a Facebook (or possibly Twitter; all this 2.0 stuff just blends into one vortex of self-absorption/promotion, really) update to that effect. The reaction was swift and ranged from a handful of friends agreeing with me, to those who'd never seen the final Blackadder offering, to those who found the Regency or Medieval installments funnier or sharper.

Picking "best ever" is, essentially, a redundant measure - after all, who could ever say that and make it truly definitive?

We have such a mistrust of critics that if Clive James were to say "best ever" we'd (as a culture; I would naturally take what he said as gospel) roll our eyes and keep plodding through prime time. If the cast of 20-To-1 (particularly the storied cineastes and television experts like Scott Cam and Nikki Webster) say something is the best ever, we change the channel.

If a magazine dubs something the "best ever", we only need to wait a year or so until someone's come up with a new series that is even better than the "best ever". Perhaps we should change it to "the best ever (up to this point in time and no further)".

In other words, it's really only an extension of the old "not what you're like, but what you like" adage.

So, today's Tube Ray serves as a sounding board; now you know what I'm like, what are you like? What are your best evers? And do you share my admiration for Blackadder Goes Forth?

I will break my former rule and leave you with one snippet of Blackadder Goes Forth, a scene that not only made me wheeze with laughter at the time (and still does so), but that firmly instilled in 8-year-old Clem a number of important values: the knowledge that war is hell - boring, interminable, and then suddenly, inevitably, pointlessly tragic hell - and a rabid mistrust of performance poetry that persists to this day:



If you can name any other shows that have effectively altered the make up of your being, then I'd like to watch them.