TVSquad

When I was a kid, I remember seeing episodes of a couple of strange British shows on my local PBS affiliate in Rochester, NY. I never caught them regularly, not even sure when they aired, but I remember one of them was a peculiar little period piece with some funny gags, and a storyline I never completely grasped.

I learned later this first show was the classic Blackadder series with Rowan Atkinson, and the reason the storylines never made sense from show to show is that there are four seasons of the show, all taking place in a different historical period. I saw them out of order, and mostly caught the first season.

Watching the new Black Adder Remastered - The Ultimate Edition DVD set from BBC America (video and audio both remastered), it's clear the best way to watch Blackadder is to at least watch each series in order. And if you can watch the whole run in order, so much the better. From the first series set in the Dark Ages to the last set in World War I (Blackadder Goes Forth), Atkinson's character, Blackadder, remains a scheming coward. But he changes, too.

That's a Kakapo over there. It's an endangered species of flightless parrot. We'll get to him in a second. But I wanted to point out that this is, in fact, the first time a Kakapo has appeared at TV Squad.

This year is the 30th anniversary of Douglas Adams' classic TV, radio and book series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As part of the celebration, BBC2 TV sent Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine off to visit the endangered species Adams searched for in another of his books, Last Chance to See.

Adams documented his growing passion for preserving fading species in the book. And BBC2 sent Fry and Carwardine out into the world to document how those species (like the Kakapo) were fairing.

You'll be able to discover the results when the show crosses the Atlantic in the coming weeks after its U.K. run. But, for now, the TV series spawned one of the web's hottest viral videos.

John Hodgman's public lambasting of the BBC for not bringing QI to America didn't explain the network's reason for their decision, other than Dumb Ol' America is so dumb (how dumb are we?) that when we go to a sperm bank, we ask the teller for a BLANK.

Thankfully, Hodgman isn't the only man coming to the U.S.A.'s defense. John Lloyd, the show's executive producer, feels the same way so much so that he was willing to interrupt his vacation in Turkey to chat with me about it.

"Garth Ancier (BBC America chief) is convinced that Americans 'won't get it'," Lloyd said in an email. "We disagree (of course!)."

John Hodgman seems like a gentle and mellow soul who uses wit, grace and intelligence to make his arguments, instead of more American methods of debate, such as yelling, name-calling or numb-chucks nunchucks.

However, when something gets stuck in his craw, he can unleash an unholy tornado of rage and seething anger. He can muster the unstoppable force of an undersea volcano and spew forth a raw stream of pointed arguments and reasoned thinking that could melt the butt off of an Eastern gray squirrel.

This time, Hodgman pointed his pressure washer of wit towards BBC America for refusing to pick up a comedy panel quiz show called QI.

Yep, I got a Twitter. It's part of my plan to plaster the Internet with links to my must-read blog posts about '90s indie rock and that handsome bastard Neil Patrick Harris (don't ask). Fortunately for you, some clever TV stars also use Twitter for fun and shameless self-promotion.

Here are ten fan-friendly TV celebs worth stalking on Twitter. Unlike that fake Stephen Colbert, these guys are all one-hundred percent, real-life paparazzo magnets.

(S02E13) That was not good. -- Bones to Booth after he shoots an innocent clown head.

Hey, it's Bill!

Did you recognize the actor who portrayed sleazebag Monte Gold? It was none other than Alex Winter, the man who played Bill S. Preston, Esq. in the Bill and Ted movie duology (is it a word? I don't know, but I'm using it anyway). You don't remember him? Let's see if this jogs your memory . . . he was the friend of Ted Logan, played by the much more successful Keanu Reeves. Ah, now you remember! Nice bit of casting there by the producers of Bones.