Blackadder ends best

The finale of "Blackadder Goes Fourth" has been voted as the nation's favourite ending to a TV series.

16:58 22 March 2004

The finale of "Blackadder Goes Fourth" has been voted as the nation's favourite ending to a TV series.

The emotional ending, seeing the majority of the cast killed as they run at enemy guns, received 23 per cent of the vote in a new poll.

More recent endings, including "The Office" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" came in narrowly behind, with 22 and 17 per cent respectively.

NTL received 4,675 votes in its online poll - held to mark the ending of cult show "Sex in the City".

Dawn leaving with Tim and Spike going up in flames managed to poll more of the vote than the finale of "Cheers" - which came in at seventh.

David Thatcher, NTL's director of TV, said the survey demonstrated that: "TV viewers are more able to bond with comedy characters".

Six comedies made it into the top ten.

He added that Britain can be "very proud about the performance of our home-grown TV programmes".

"Despite the massive hype surrounding the success of US comedy in the UK, almost 50 per cent of the votes cast went to the top two programmes."

1 - Blackadder Goes Forth
2 - The Office
3 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
4 - Cold Feet
5 - Dallas
6 - Mash
7 - Cheers
8 - Inspector Morse
9 - The Young Ones
10 - Ally McBeal