The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series)
Encyclopedia
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...

broadcast in January and February 1981 on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

. The adaptation follows the original radio series
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series written by Douglas Adams . It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards on global short wave radio on the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the U.S. and CBC Radio in...

 in 1978 and 1980, the first novel and double LP, in 1979, and the stage shows, in 1979 and 1980, making it the fifth iteration of the guide.

The series stars Simon Jones
Simon Jones (actor)
Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...

 as Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....

, David Dixon
David Dixon
David Dixon is an English actor and screenwriter. He was born in the Nightingale Maternity Home, Derby, near his father's shop in 94 London Road and brought up there before the family moved to 14 St...

 as Ford Prefect
Ford Prefect (character)
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. He is the only character other than the protagonist, Arthur Dent, to appear throughout the entire Hitchhiker's saga.-Name:Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth...

, Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey is a British actor and director.-Early life and career:The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing, Wing-Davey went to school at Woolverstone Hall School, before studying at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Footlights from 1967 to 1970.He had a featured...

 as Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....

 and Sandra Dickinson
Sandra Dickinson
Sandra Dickinson is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice in the UK – notably commencing in the St...

 as Trillian
Trillian (character)
Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the...

. The voice of the guide is by Peter Jones
Peter Jones (actor)
Peter Jones was an English actor, screenwriter and broadcaster.-Early life and career:Jones was born in Wem, Shropshire and he was educated at the Wem Grammar School and Ellesmere College. He made his first appearance as an actor in Wolverhampton at the age of 16 and then appeared in repertory...

. Simon Jones, Peter Jones and Mark Wing-Davey had already provided the voices for their characters in the original radio series in 1978/80. In addition, the series features a number of notable cameo roles, including Adams himself on several occasions.

Although initially thought by BBC executives to be unfilmable, the series was successfully produced and directed by Alan J. W. Bell
Alan J. W. Bell
Alan J. W. Bell is a British television producer and director. He has produced and/or directed many BBC series since the early 1970s, most notably Last of the Summer Wine, Ripping Yarns and the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

 and went on to win a Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

 award as Most Original Programme of 1981, as well as several BAFTA awards for its graphics and editing.

Development and production

After the success of the first seven episodes of the radio series
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series written by Douglas Adams . It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards on global short wave radio on the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the U.S. and CBC Radio in...

, all broadcast in 1978, and while the second radio series was being recorded, Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

 was commissioned to deliver a pilot script for a television adaptation on 29 May 1979, to be delivered by 1 August. A fully animated version was briefly discussed in the autumn of 1978, but it was eventually decided to make most of the series feature "live action" and only animate The Guides entries. John Lloyd
John Lloyd (writer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...

, who had worked with Adams on the first radio series, is credited with starting the process of adapting the series for television, after the receipt of the pilot script, with a memo to the Head of Light Entertainment (John Howard Davies
John Howard Davies
John Howard Davies was an English television director and producer and former child actor.Davies was born in Paddington, London, the son of the scriptwriter Jack Davies...

) in September 1979. Adams was still working on scripts for the second radio series of Hitchhiker's and working as Script Editor for Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, and thus the BBC extended the deadline for the pilot script of the television adaptation to the end of November. The script for the pilot was delivered in December 1979, and terms for the five remaining scripts were agreed upon in January 1980. While there was some resistance to a project considered "unfilmable," Alan J. W. Bell
Alan J. W. Bell
Alan J. W. Bell is a British television producer and director. He has produced and/or directed many BBC series since the early 1970s, most notably Last of the Summer Wine, Ripping Yarns and the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

 was given the duties to produce and direct the TV adaptation. John Lloyd was signed as Associate Producer.

In early 1980, production on the pilot episode began on several fronts. Rod Lord, of Pearce Animation Studios, directed a 50 second pilot, hand-animated, giving a 'computer graphic' feel to the Babel Fish
Races and species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
This is a list of races, fauna, and flora featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.-Aldebarans:...

 speech of the first episode. Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

 and Alan J.W. Bell were both pleased with the animation, and Lord was given the "go ahead" to do all of the animation for Episode 1 (and subsequently the complete TV series). Narration for the first episode was recorded by Peter Jones
Peter Jones (actor)
Peter Jones was an English actor, screenwriter and broadcaster.-Early life and career:Jones was born in Wem, Shropshire and he was educated at the Wem Grammar School and Ellesmere College. He made his first appearance as an actor in Wolverhampton at the age of 16 and then appeared in repertory...

 in March 1980. The filming of two green-skinned aliens reacting to Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters was done on 8 May 1980. Further filming of crowd reactions to the Vogon
Vogon
The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an intergalactic highway construction project. Vogons are slug-like but vaguely humanoid, are...

s, location filming of "Arthur's House" and a scene in a pub were done between 11 and 16 May 1980. Scenes aboard the Vogon ship were recorded on 7 June 1980, in the BBC's TC1 studio. The final edit of the pilot episode was completed on 2 July 1980, and it was premiered for a test audience three days later (5 July 1980). Further test screenings were held in August 1980. Based on successful test screenings, the cast were reassembled to complete the six episodes of the series in September 1980. Production continued through the autumn, with filming and recording occurring "out of order." Recording and production on the final episode continued into January 1981.

The gap in production made for some continuity problems between the pilot episode and the remainder, Notably, Simon Jones' hair was cut short for another role, and he wears a noticeable hairpiece in later episodes. Conversely, Dixon's hair appears longer.

One major change first appeared in the stage show and LP adaptations, and made its way into the novels and TV adaptation. Nearly all of the sequences from Fit the Fifth and Fit the Sixth in the first radio series that were originally co-written with John Lloyd were completely cut. Thus the Hotblack Desiato character and Disaster Area
Disaster area
A disaster area is a region or a locale heavily damaged by either natural hazards, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, technological hazards including nuclear and radiation accidents, or sociological hazards like riots, terrorism or war. The population living there often...

 make appearances in TV Episode 5, and Ford
Ford Prefect (character)
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. He is the only character other than the protagonist, Arthur Dent, to appear throughout the entire Hitchhiker's saga.-Name:Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth...

, Arthur
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....

, Zaphod
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....

 and Trillian
Trillian (character)
Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the...

 are all randomly teleported off of Disaster Area's stunt ship in TV Episode 6. Lloyd does receive a co-writer's credit on Episode 5, for the material on the statistics about the universe.

The complexities of adapting the material for television meant that some episodes became as long as 35 minutes, and some would say that the best jokes from the radio series had to be cut. The programme is particularly notable for its mock computer animation sequences, actually produced by hand using traditional cel animation techniques. There have been several different edits of the series: Some, but not all, PBS stations recut the series into seven 30-minute episodes (when PBS member stations began transmitting the episodes nearly two years later, in December 1982). Other PBS stations re-edited the programme into "TV movies" (broadcasting more than one episode at a time without interruption). The UK videotape release was on two tapes — both consisting of three episodes edited to run together, also adding some previously unseen material and remixed the soundtrack into stereo (the North American VHS tape release by CBS-Fox Home Video included this material on a single videocassette). The DVD edition claims to be the final and definitive version of the six TV episodes.
Another production problem was that, being a visual adaptation, a solution had to be found to display Zaphod's three arms and two heads (a joke originally written for radio). In a previous stage adaptation, a version of the "pantomime horse" was used, where two actors filled one costume, providing three arms and two heads between them. For this TV series, an animatronic head was designed and built, incorporating twelve servos and two radio-controlled receivers. However, the head was unreliable and in many scenes merely sits there, inanimate. For the third arm, most of the time it was "seen" tucked into Zaphod's jacket. But when called for, Mike Kelt, who had designed the extra head, would hide behind Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey is a British actor and director.-Early life and career:The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing, Wing-Davey went to school at Woolverstone Hall School, before studying at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Footlights from 1967 to 1970.He had a featured...

 and slip a third arm into the appropriate sleeve.

Other elements to the production were done by a variety of BBC designers. The Heart of Gold and "B Ark" models were built by Perry Brahan. The "small, furry creature from Alpha Centauri" in Episode 3 was a puppet designed and controlled by Jim Francis
Jim Francis
Jim Francis is a former Australian rules footballer and coach in the Victorian Football League.After playing 61 games for Hawthorn Francis made his debut for the Carlton Football Club in Round 9 of the 1934 season. He retired as a player at the end of the 1943 season and was appointed coach of the...

. Jim Francis also built the Magrathean bubble car, also seen in Episode 3 (and was the stunt double for Richard Vernon
Richard Vernon
Richard Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles...

 for the scene in which the bubble car was seen to fly). Matte Paintings throughout the series were created by Jean Peyre. Music and sound effects were by Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggars Grammar School, Alton, in Hampshire, he joined the BBC as a tape editor before moving on to...

, with the exception of the theme music. The familiar Journey of the Sorcerer
One of These Nights
One of These Nights is the fourth studio album by the Eagles, released in 1975. The record's title song became the group's second #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, in July of that year. The album released three Top 10 singles, "One Of These Nights", "Lyin' Eyes", and "Take It To The Limit". Those...

theme, by Bernie Leadon
Bernie Leadon
Bernard Mathew "Bernie" Leadon, III is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of two pioneering and highly influential country rock bands, Dillard & Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers...

, was used again, in the arrangement by Tim Souster
Tim Souster
Tim Souster was a British composer best known for his electronic music output.- Background :Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Souster was educated at Bedford Modern School and New College, Oxford...

 that had previously been used for the
Hitchhiker's LP. Video effects using the Quantel system were done by Dave Jervis. Other puppets, including "insects" seen in Episode 5, were designed by Susan Moore. Some of the actual puppeteering was done by Stuart Murdoch, including operating parts of the "Dish of the Day" animal.

Two important cast changes were made for the TV version. David Dixon
David Dixon
David Dixon is an English actor and screenwriter. He was born in the Nightingale Maternity Home, Derby, near his father's shop in 94 London Road and brought up there before the family moved to 14 St...

 replaced Geoffrey McGivern
Geoffrey McGivern
Geoffrey McGivern is an English actor in film, radio, stage and television. He was born in Balham, South London and grew up in York. There he attended Archbishop Holgate's School, where he was made Head Boy...

 as Ford, and Sandra Dickinson
Sandra Dickinson
Sandra Dickinson is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice in the UK – notably commencing in the St...

 replaced Susan Sheridan
Susan Sheridan
Susan Sheridan is a British actress. Her voice acting roles include Noddy in the Cosgrove Hall/BBC Television series Noddy's Toyland Adventures, Trillian in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Princess Eilonwy in the animated film The Black Cauldron.She has also provided...

 as Trillian. The changes were made because McGivern did not suit the role visually, and Susan Sheridan
Susan Sheridan
Susan Sheridan is a British actress. Her voice acting roles include Noddy in the Cosgrove Hall/BBC Television series Noddy's Toyland Adventures, Trillian in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Princess Eilonwy in the animated film The Black Cauldron.She has also provided...

 was unavailable at the time. Another new cast member was Michael Cule, who appears as the Vogon Guard in Episode 2. Michael had first appeared in one of the Hitchhiker's stage adaptations, performing no less than twelve roles, reprised the Vogon Guard part in the 1992 Making of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV documentary (and voiced the Babel Fish), appeared in the 1994 photo illustrated edition of the book (as Prosser), and returned a third time as a Vogon Guard for the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 
Quandary Phase.

Because of the sheer number of models used in episodes 2 to 6, a single day of filming just the model sequences was set aside at the BBC's Television Centre on 28 October 1980. This has been described as "a luxury few other shows could afford."
In order to provide proper timing of spoken lines on-set, Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

 himself spoke the lines of Eddie the Computer and Deep Thought, until they were redubbed by David Tate and Valentine Dyall
Valentine Dyall
Valentine Dyall was an English character actor, the son of veteran actor Franklin Dyall. Dyall was especially popular as a voice actor, due to his very distinctive sepulchral voice, he was known for many years as "The Man in Black", narrator of the BBC Radio horror series Appointment With Fear.In...

 respectively. Douglas Adams has several cameo appearances in the TV series:
    • Episode 1: One of the drinkers in the background of the pub.
    • Episode 2: The man who walks naked into the ocean. (The original actor for the part called in sick)
    • Episode 2: The Guide entry on "The Worst Poetry" also used Adams's likeness as the basis for the illustration of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings.
    • Episode 2: In the future Encyclopedia Galactica, Douglas makes a cameo appearance as one of the Sirius Cybernetic Marketing Division members
    • Episode 3: An image in a guide entry on "an important and popular fact" (along with animator Rod Lord, who provided a self-portrait). The hand animated "computer graphics" of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself won a BAFTA award, a Design and Art Direction (D&AD) silver award, and a London Film Fest award.


The spaceman, suspended from a wire, in the titles sequence was Alan Harris
Alan Harris
Alan Harris is a Welsh playwright. His play A Good Night Out in the Valleys launched the new National Theatre Wales in March 2010 and he has worked with theatre companies throughout the United Kingdom....

.

Locations for filming included a clay pit and the former Par—Fowey railway tunnel in Cornwall, the Edmonds Farm and Red Lion pub in Sussex, the Budgemoor Golf & Country Club near Henley-on-Thames, and the Peak District National Park.
Episode 3 was originally scripted to have a "pre-credits sequence" where Trillian announces their arrival at "the most improbable planet that ever existed" (i.e. Magrathea) to Zaphod. This was never filmed. The arrangement of "Journey of the Sorcerer" by Tim Souster
Tim Souster
Tim Souster was a British composer best known for his electronic music output.- Background :Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Souster was educated at Bedford Modern School and New College, Oxford...

, used in the titles, was released as a single in the UK in January 1981. The "B Side" featured Douglas Adams playing rhythm guitar.

Many of the costumes seen in Episodes 1 to 4 can be seen again during sequences at Milliway's in Episode 5. In Episode 5 the writing at the start showing 42 crossed out several times also includes the number 101010 which is the 42nd number in binary code.

Episode guide

Synopsis

Episode 1 begins with a pre-credits sequence, the only one of the TV episodes to have one. A countdown to the end of the world is displayed through animation, and the narrator begins telling the story of the Guide and Arthur Dent's connection to it as the sun rises over the English countryside for the final time. Arthur wakes, discovers the threat to his house from a yellow bulldozer by looking out the window, and the camera pulls back to the credits. This episode closely follows the plot and dialogue of the first episode of the radio series, cutting the speech by Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton. It ends at a slightly earlier point than the radio episode, after Ford's line "he might want to read us some of his poetry first", and on a cliffhanger that Arthur and Ford are about to be discovered in a Vogon storeroom, but before the Vogon poetry is actually read.

Cast (in order of appearance)

  • The Book (narrator): Peter Jones
    Peter Jones (actor)
    Peter Jones was an English actor, screenwriter and broadcaster.-Early life and career:Jones was born in Wem, Shropshire and he was educated at the Wem Grammar School and Ellesmere College. He made his first appearance as an actor in Wolverhampton at the age of 16 and then appeared in repertory...

  • Arthur Dent
    Arthur Dent
    Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....

    : Simon Jones
    Simon Jones (actor)
    Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...

  • Mr Prosser: Joe Melia
    Joe Melia
    -Films:* Too Many Crooks * Follow a Star * The Intelligence Men * Four in the Morning * Modesty Blaise * Oh! What a Lovely War * Antony and Cleopatra * Sweeney!...

  • Ford Prefect
    Ford Prefect (character)
    Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. He is the only character other than the protagonist, Arthur Dent, to appear throughout the entire Hitchhiker's saga.-Name:Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth...

    : David Dixon
    David Dixon
    David Dixon is an English actor and screenwriter. He was born in the Nightingale Maternity Home, Derby, near his father's shop in 94 London Road and brought up there before the family moved to 14 St...

  • Workman One (uncredited): Terry Duran
  • Workman Two (uncredited): George Cornelius (actor)George Cornelius
  • Alien (girl): Cleo Rocos
    Cleo Rocos
    Cleo Rocos is a UK-based comedy actress and television/theatre producer and presenter, best known for appearing on The Kenny Everett Television Show. She is of Greek and English descent...

  • Alien (guy): Andrew Mussell
  • Man at end of bar (uncredited): Douglas Adams
    Douglas Adams
    Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

  • Barman: Steve Conway
  • Barfly (uncredited): Steve Trainer
  • Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (Vogon Captain) and Vogon Guard (uncredited for the latter): Martin Benson
    Martin Benson (actor)
    Martin Benjamin Benson was an English character actor, who appeared in films, theatre and television. He appeared in both British and Hollywood productions.-Career:...

  • Sandwich-board man (uncredited): David Grahame
  • Irritated man hitting radio (uncredited): Bill Barnsley

Synopsis

The episode opens with a recap of the story, with Ford and Arthur about to be captured. After being read Vogon poetry, they are thrown out of an airlock and improbably rescued by the Starship Heart of Gold, which has been stolen by Ford's semi-cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....

, accompanied by Trillian
Trillian (character)
Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the...

, a young woman who Arthur once met at a party. Ford and Arthur are escorted to the bridge by Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold...

 and meet Zaphod and Trillian. The episode ends after they are introduced, with no cliffhanger.

Cast (in order of appearance)

  • The Book: Peter Jones
  • Unhappy man (uncredited): Douglas Adams
  • Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
  • Ford Prefect: David Dixon
  • Vogon Captain: Martin Benson
  • Vogon Guard: Michael Cule
  • Trillian
    Trillian (character)
    Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the...

    : Sandra Dickinson
    Sandra Dickinson
    Sandra Dickinson is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice in the UK – notably commencing in the St...

  • Zaphod Beeblebrox
    Zaphod Beeblebrox
    Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....

    : Mark Wing-Davey
    Mark Wing-Davey
    Mark Wing-Davey is a British actor and director.-Early life and career:The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing, Wing-Davey went to school at Woolverstone Hall School, before studying at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Footlights from 1967 to 1970.He had a featured...

  • Marvin (costume)
    Marvin the Paranoid Android
    Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold...

    : David Learner
    David Learner
    David Learner is a British actor who is most famous for his portrayal of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the TV show and stage adaption of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and his performance as Pickle in the popular CITV Adventure Gameshow Knightmare....

  • Marvin (voice): Stephen Moore
    Stephen Moore (actor)
    Stephen Moore is an English actor, known for his work on British television since the 1980s. He is known for his appearances in Rock Follies and other TV series such as The Last Place on Earth, the children's series The Queen's Nose and the drama Mersey Beat and the British TV comedy series Solo,...

  • Young Smartarse (uncredited): Ralph Morse
  • Newscaster: Rayner Bourton
  • Gag Halfrunt: Gil Morris
  • Eddie the Computer: David Tate

Synopsis

The episode opens with a guide entry explaining the legendary planet of Magrathea, which manufactured planets millions of years ago, until the Galactic economy collapsed. Zaphod has been explaining to Ford that he has found the legendary planet of Magrathea, whilst Trillian tends to a pair of white mice. Zaphod orders the computer to land on the planet surface.

Before long, they receive a transmission from the Commercial Council of Magrathea, informing them that the planet is closed for business and asking them to leave. They ignore this and later receive another message, noting that nuclear missiles have been sent at the ship. Attempts to evade the missiles fail, and Arthur uses the ship's Infinite Improbability Drive, which ends up turning the missiles into a very surprised looking whale and a bowl of petunias. Trillian discovers that during the chaos, her mice escaped.

The five characters go onto the surface, where they find it desolate. Zaphod suggests that the Magratheans lived beneath the surface of the planet. They split into two groups — Trillian, Zaphod and Ford explore a tunnel, whilst Arthur and Marvin remain on the surface. Trillian, Zaphod and Ford's thread ends on a cliff-hanger, with them seeing something alarming at the end of the corridor.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Marvin watch the sunset. Eventually, Slartibartfast
Slartibartfast
Slartibartfast is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comedy/science fiction series created by Douglas Adams. The character appears in the first and third novels, the first and third radio series , the 1981 television series and the 2005 feature film...

 arrives, and asks Arthur to come with him. He explains that the Magratheans were in hibernation for the last five million years. They get into his air-car, and descend deep into a tunnel.

A guide narrative intervenes, explaining that whilst humanity had always assumed that it was the most intelligent species on Earth, in fact the dolphins were more intelligent, and had left the planet some time before. However, both the dolphins and humans were less intelligent than the mice.

Meanwhile, Slartibartfast shows Arthur the vast tract of hyperspace that acts as the Magrathean's "factory floor", and that they have been brought out of hibernation for a special commission — "the Earth Mk 2, we're making a copy from our original blueprints". The Earth was originally made by Magrathea for mice; and it was destroyed five minutes too early. The episode ends here.

Cast (in order of appearance)

  • The Book: Peter Jones
  • Spaceman (uncredited): John Austen-Gregg
  • Spacewoman (uncredited): Zoe Hendry
  • Handmaiden One (uncredited): Nicola Critcher
  • Handmaiden Two (uncredited): Jacoba
  • Handmaiden Three (uncredited): Lorraine Paul
  • Handmaiden Four (uncredited): Susie Silvey
  • Rich Merchant (uncredited): John Dair
  • Ford Prefect: David Dixon
  • Zaphod Beeblebrox: Mark Wing-Davey
  • Trillian: Sandra Dickinson
  • Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
  • Eddie the Computer: David Tate
  • Holographic Magrathean and Slartibartfast
    Slartibartfast
    Slartibartfast is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comedy/science fiction series created by Douglas Adams. The character appears in the first and third novels, the first and third radio series , the 1981 television series and the 2005 feature film...

    : Richard Vernon
    Richard Vernon
    Richard Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles...

  • Marvin the Paranoid Android: David Learner
  • Voices of the Whale and Marvin: Stephen Moore

Synopsis

Slartibartfast shows Arthur the archive tapes of Deep Thought being given the "Search for the Ultimate Answer" and of the result reported by the computer seven and a half million years later. After learning that the Earth was set up to search for the "Ultimate Question," Slartibartfast and Arthur join Ford, Trillian, Zaphod, and Trillian's mice, who had guided them to Magrathea.

The mice dismiss Slartibartfast, then express their desire to extract the "Ultimate Question" by first extracting Arthur's brain. While the mice attempt to strike a deal, the Galactic Police arrive, and Ford, Arthur, Trillian and Zaphod flee the dining hall, only to be cornered by the police in a large bay. After a misunderstanding, the police continue to fire on a computer bank behind which the four are hiding, which explodes, ending the episode on a cliffhanger.

Cast (in order of appearance)

  • The Book: Peter Jones
  • Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
  • Slartibartfast: Richard Vernon
  • PA Voice (uncredited): David Tate
  • Lunkwill/Loon-Quall (latter uncredited): Antony Carrick
  • Fook/Phougg (latter uncredited): Timothy Davies
  • Deep Thought: Valentine Dyall
    Valentine Dyall
    Valentine Dyall was an English character actor, the son of veteran actor Franklin Dyall. Dyall was especially popular as a voice actor, due to his very distinctive sepulchral voice, he was known for many years as "The Man in Black", narrator of the BBC Radio horror series Appointment With Fear.In...

  • Guard (uncredited): Richard Reid
  • Majikthise: David Leland
    David Leland
    David Leland is a director, screenwriter and actor who came to international fame with his directorial debut Wish You Were Here in 1987.-Life:...

  • Vroomfondel: Charles McKeown
    Charles McKeown
    Charles McKeown is a British actor and writer, perhaps best known for his collaborations with Terry Gilliam. The two met while shooting Monty Python's Life of Brian, while McKeown was doing bit parts in the film.-Screenwriting career:...

  • Alien Robot (uncredited): Eddie Sommer
  • G'Gugvunt Leader (uncredited): Eric French
  • Vl'Hurg Leader (uncredited): James Muir
  • Trillian: Sandra Dickinson
  • Zaphod Beeblebrox: Mark Wing-Davey
  • Ford Prefect: Luke Jackson
  • Benjy Mouse: David Tate
  • Frankie Mouse: Stephen Moore
  • Bang Bang: Marc Smith
    Marc Smith (actor)
    Marc Smith was an American born actor who appeared in several films, occasionally dubbing parts in Japanese anime.-Filmography:*Live and Let Die - UN Interpreter*The Spikes Gang - Abel Young*Gold - Tex Kiernan...

  • Shooty: Matt Zimmerman

Note: The part of "Loon-Quall," one of the two computer programmers who hears Deep Thought announce "The Answer," is stated by the DVD production notes as being played by David Leland. However, the idea of the role was for that character to have been descended from the earlier programmer, Lunkwill, played by Antony Carrick.

Synopsis

After an initial period of confusion, the four travelers find they have been transported forward in time to just before the end of the universe. They are in Milliways, the "Restaurant at the End of the Universe," which was built on the ruins of Magrathea. So, as Arthur says, they have traveled through time but not through space. Waiting for them is Marvin the Depressed Robot, who they left on Magrathea millions of years ago. He's now an attendant at the car park, and still depressed. Just before the universe ends, Zaphod and Ford get Marvin to help them steal a supercool all-black spaceship, which turns out to be the property of a very loud rock band called "Disaster Area." The episode ends on the cliff-hanger as the black ship is about to start a dive into the sun of Kakrafoon.

Cast (in order of appearance)

  • The Book: Peter Jones
  • Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
  • Ford Prefect: David Dixon
  • Trillian: Sandra Dickinson
  • Zaphod Beeblebrox: Mark Wing-Davey
  • Garkbit (Head Waiter): Jack May
    Jack May
    Jack May was an English actor. Born in Henley-on-Thames, he was educated at Forest School, Walthamstow and after war service with the Royal Indian Navy in India was offered a place at RADA, but he instead went to Merton College, Oxford...

  • Girl on stairs (uncredited): Mary Eveleigh
  • Hotblack Desiato: Barry Frank Warren
  • Bodyguard: Dave Prowse
    David Prowse
    David Prowse, MBE is an English former bodybuilder, weightlifter and actor, most widely known for playing the role of Darth Vader in physical form. In Britain, he is also remembered as having played the Green Cross Code man...

  • Max Quordlepleen: Colin Jeavons
    Colin Jeavons
    Colin Jeavons is a Welsh television actor.-Career:Jeavons is best known as Inspector Lestrade in the Granada television serials The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or the part of the undertaker, Shadrack, in the television situation comedy written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from...

  • Dish of the Day: Peter Davison
    Peter Davison
    Peter Davison is a British actor, best known for his roles as Tristan Farnon in the television version of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small and the fifth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, which he played from 1982 to 1984.-Early life:Davison was born Peter Moffett in Streatham,...

  • Marvin (costume): David Learner
  • Marvin (voice): Stephen Moore
  • The Great Prophet Zarquon: Colin Bennett

Synopsis

Just before the supercool all-black ship crashes into a sun, Zaphod, Trillian, Ford, and Arthur escape in a teleport module that they convince Marvin to stay behind and operate. He is still on the ship when it heads into the sun. Ford and Arthur arrive without Zaphod and Trillian on a spaceship carrying millions people in cryogenic pods. The ship's inhabitants are from Golgafrincham; they are all "middle men"; i.e. the people that the smart Golgafrinchams (the "thinkers" and the "doers") back home wanted to get rid of.

The ship lands on pre-historic Earth. Ford realizes that the Golgafrinchams, not the primitive cave dwellers already on the planet, are the ones that will evolve into the human race. The episode ends with the two friends lamenting the eventual destruction of the Earth. The regular theme music follows the song "What a Wonderful World
What a Wonderful World
"What a Wonderful World" is a song written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong and released as a single in 1968. Thiele and Weiss were both prominent in the music world . Armstrong's recording was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999...

" by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

.

Cast (in order of appearance)

  • The Book: Peter Jones
  • Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
  • Ford Prefect: David Dixon
  • Trillian: Sandra Dickinson
  • Zaphod Beeblebrox: Mark Wing-Davey
  • Marvin (costume): David Learner
  • Marvin (voice) and Radio voices (latter uncredited): Stephen Moore
  • Newscaster: Rayner Bourton
  • Number One: Matthew Scurfield
    Matthew Scurfield
    Matthew Scurfield is an actor and the eldest child of the late author George Scurfield and his wife Cecilia in Cambridge, England....

  • Number Three: Geoffrey Beevers
    Geoffrey Beevers
    Geoffrey Beevers is a British actor who has appeared in many different television roles.Beevers has worked extensively at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, both as an actor ; and as an adaptor/director of George Eliot's novel Adam Bede , for which he won a Time Out Award, and Balzac's...


  • B Ark Captain: Aubrey Morris
    Aubrey Morris
    Aubrey Morris is a British actor perhaps best known for his appearances in the cult 1970s films A Clockwork Orange and The Wicker Man....

  • Marketing Girl: Beth Porter
    Beth Porter
    Beth Jane Porter, is an American stage, film and television actress and writer, who has worked in Britain for most of her career.-Early life:...

  • Hairdresser: David Rowlands
  • Management Consultant: Jon Glover
    Jon Glover
    Jon Glover is a British actor. He has appeared in various television programmes including Play School, Survivors, the Management consultant in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Casualty, Bodger and Badger and Peak Practice....

  • Number Two: David Neville

Possibility of second series

A second series was planned at one point, with a storyline, according to Alan Bell
Alan J. W. Bell
Alan J. W. Bell is a British television producer and director. He has produced and/or directed many BBC series since the early 1970s, most notably Last of the Summer Wine, Ripping Yarns and the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

 and Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey is a British actor and director.-Early life and career:The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing, Wing-Davey went to school at Woolverstone Hall School, before studying at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Footlights from 1967 to 1970.He had a featured...

, that would have come from Adams' abandoned Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen project (instead of a TV version of the second radio series). However, Adams got into disputes with the BBC (accounts differ: problems with budget, scripts, and having Alan Bell and/or Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Howard Perkins was a comedy producer, writer and performer, and an important figure in British comedy broadcasting. This was recognised in December 2008 when he was awarded with an Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award...

 involved are all offered as causes), and the second series was never made. The elements of the
Doctor Who and the Krikketmen project instead became the third novel, Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by British writer Douglas Adams...

.

Documentary

In 1992, Kevin Davies
Kevin Davies (director)
Kevin Jon Davies is a British television and video director primarily associated with documentaries and spin-off videos associated with Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Blake's 7...

 wrote and directed a "making of" documentary entitled
The Making of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Davies had previously worked on the stage show at the Rainbow Theatre, and, while working for Pierce Animation Studios in 1980, had introduced Alan Bell
Alan J. W. Bell
Alan J. W. Bell is a British television producer and director. He has produced and/or directed many BBC series since the early 1970s, most notably Last of the Summer Wine, Ripping Yarns and the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

 to Rod Lord, leading to the animation for the TV series. For the documentary, Davies used many photographs and home movies he shot during the 1980 production of the series and recorded new interviews in October 1992 with the cast and crew. New footage of Simon Jones
Simon Jones (actor)
Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...

, David Dixon
David Dixon
David Dixon is an English actor and screenwriter. He was born in the Nightingale Maternity Home, Derby, near his father's shop in 94 London Road and brought up there before the family moved to 14 St...

 and Michael Cule, in character, were shot at the farm used for Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....

's house in Sussex, and incorporated into the documentary, with some references to So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, as described in The...

, such as Arthur finding his home intact, and placing his (animated) Babel fish
Races and species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
This is a list of races, fauna, and flora featured in various incarnations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.-Aldebarans:...

 into a goldfish bowl. BBC video released the sixty minute documentary on VHS in 1993. Footage not included in the original documentary was included in the 2002 DVD release of the series. The documentary itself has not (as of 2005) been transmitted on TV.

Video and DVD releases

Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

 reveals in the first edition of his biography of Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

, Don't Panic, that the BBC was preparing a laserdisc release of the Hitchhiker's TV series in the mid-1980s, but had to cancel the project due to a legal tangle with the movie rights, although master tapes for the laserdiscs were prepared. The sound was specially remixed in stereo and Elektra/Asylum records agreed to license the original Eagles theme music for the laserdisc release. BBC Video eventually was able to do an initial VHS release in 1992. This was a dual cassette edition, with "never before broadcast material" (that had been cut to shorten the episodes). CBS/Fox Home Video made the six episodes available on a single tape in North America starting in 1993. They were joined by "The Making of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," also on VHS, that same year, as well as a laserdisc release. The complete series on one tape and the "Making of" on the second tape could also be purchased in a box set edition. Restoration of the six episodes and the "Making of" documentary were begun in 2001, with a Region 2+4 DVD release in the United Kingdom by BBC Video (Catalog Number BBCDVD 1092) in January 2002. A Region 1 edition, released by Warner Home Video, followed in April 2002. Both DVD editions are two-disc sets, with the six episodes on disc 1, and bonus materials on disc 2. The North American DVD edition also has a copy of the Omnibus
Omnibus (TV series)
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings....

tribute to Douglas Adams, from BBC 2, that aired on 4 August 2001, which the UK DVD edition does not.

Awards

  • Royal Television Society
    Royal Television Society
    The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

    :
    • Best Original Programme
  • BAFTA:
    • Best VTR Editor: Ian Williams
    • Best Sound Supervisor: Michael McCarthy
    • Best Graphics: Rod Lord

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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