Science Fiction (and Fantasy) on Television

External Links

You absolutely must visit the Official Douglas Adams Site

Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Site at the BBC

H2G2

Don't Panic! Is it a radio show? Is it a series of books? Is it a television series? Yes.

It is also a cult comedy and if you ever wondered about the meaning of life, the universe and everything, and even if you haven't then this is essential knowledge. Of course knowing that the answer is 42 may just annoy you.

It started on the Radio and quite wonderful it was, (yes, a few of us actually heard the original series! Frighteningly, I even have the record - one of those black vinyl LP things...). The radio scripts themselves make good reading, but it is the books - the increasingly misnamed trilogy in five parts - that really fired people's imaginations. The brilliant creation of Douglas Adams, it is still the books that will probably always be the best way to remember tHHGttG (or just HHGG). Douglas Adams very sadly died in 2001 without reaching his half-century. [BBC report] HHGG was both his blessing and his curse - so successful, he found it difficult to escape it, and yet there is much else he has left us (which I'll explore at a later date). He was in California, still trying to get the movie made. It still hasn't happened.

The story? It starts with a normal Earth man Arthur Dent (Simon Jones) who is trying to stop the local council knocking his house down to build a bypass. His best friend Ford Prefect (David Dixon) turns up and says it isn't important, drags him off to the pub and explains that the Earth is about to be destroyed. He knows this because he is not actually from Earth - he is from near Betelgeuse. He helps the two of them hitch a ride on a Vogon spaceship that is part of the fleet about to destroy Earth to make way for a hyperspatial express route. "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

Having used his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic to get them on board the Vogon spaceship, Ford now explained a few things to Arthur and acquires him a Babel Fish to stick in his ear so that he can understand all languages. He also introduces Arthur to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - emblazoned on the front in nice friendly letters are the words, "Don't Panic". It explains everything that a hitchhiker needs to know when hitching around the galaxy and speaks with the wonderfully melifluous tones of Peter Jones. Thing is, the Vogons really, really hate hitchhikers and, after the Captain subjects the two to some Vogon poetry - a very painful experience, they're ejected into space. "So this is it, we're going to die."

Of course, as the HHGG says, with space being so mind boggling big, the odds of you being picked up by another ship within the 30 seconds it would take before you die unprotected in space are "two to the power of two hundred and sixty-seven thousand seven hundred and nine to one against". So it is quite fortunate for them that 29 seconds later they are picked up by a ship equipped with an Infinite Improbability Drive.

And this is where they meet:

Zaphod Beeblebrox (Mark Wing-Davey) who has two heads and an extra arm and whose favourite drink is a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster. And who stole the spaceship. And just happens to be an old 'friend' of Ford's. Surprisingly, Arthur has also met him.

Trillian (Sandra Dickinson), mentions that they picked up a couple of guys in an area of open space ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. She also happens to be the girl that Zaphod picked up that Arthur was trying to impress at a party six months ago in Islington.

Oh and don't let me forget Marvin the Paranoid Android (David Learner) who has a brain the size of a planet, but gets asked to do menial tasks. One of the most brilliant SF robots ever created.

On their travels, they go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and also get to meet the creator of Earth and find out that it was an experimental computer to find out what the computer "Deep Thought" meant when it said "42". In the end they find themselves back there with the occupants of "Ark B".

The TV series has dated quite badly - far more so than Doctor Who or Blake's 7. But then, it is not that easy to find anyway. So do yourself a favour and go and read the books. Then read everything else by Douglas Adams.

So long Doug, and thanks for all the fish.

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