Just when you thought Twitter was a good thing, along comes the harsh 21st century reality of a seemingly innocent tweet that is taken as gospel and spread through the land without any effort to verify the source first. Last weeks uploaded photo by the Earl of Grantham himself, Hugh Bonneville, of the cast of Downton Abbey clowning it up at the Opening Ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic Games was brilliant.

Unfortunately, good Twitter was immediately followed up several days later by bad Twitter with a cryptic message ‘tweeted’ as if it was coming from one of the stars of the Opening Ceremonies and Blackadder co-creator, Rowan Atkinson, saying that, “One can share that there may be a blackadder reunion, what do you all think about that?” This was later followed up with: “The return of Blackadder will be cunning and exquisite and “I can confirm, there will be one last episode of Blackadder, a reunion.”

Given that the likes of Emma Freud (the director of Red Nose Day), Blackadder co-creator Richard Curtis, the British Comedy Guide and a number of Blackadder fans sites have done their best to put this rumor to rest, the latest questionable tweet announcing that the final episode of Blackadder will transmit on BBC One on September 1 at 7:30p is as far from the same universe as reality as you can get. Yes, Atkinson has hinted the last several years that the series could return for a fifth installment, but given the logistics of pulling something of this magnitude off, this isn’t happening in three weeks.

Think about it. First, I can’t see someone such as Rowan Atkinson that values his privacy as much as he does on Twitter. Second, there is nothing anywhere on the Internets that has confirmed this. Twitter is the only source and with this not a verified Rowan Atkinson account, I will believe it when I see it. It should serve as a reminder to EVERYONE that has picked this up and run with it in print, that you need to consider the source and verify before taking something like this as gospel and toying with Blackadder fans worldwide.

Until there is even a remote possibility of a Blackadder V, we’ll have to be content with this 2011 reincarnation of the 1988 Comic Relief classic, Blackadder: The Cavalier Years….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SXf9-Z3jwk

Of course, the person holding the fake Rowan Atkinson twitter account is just seeking publicity. So, what did I do? I wrote about it, didn’t I.