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'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' is the most remarkable television series ever to come out of the BBC between January and February of the year 1981. More authoritative on the inner workings of the Vogon Constructor Fleet than 'The Fall And Rise Of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz', more comprehensive on the early planning stages of the Norwegian coastlines than 'Changing Fjords', and more informative about the culinary offerings to be found at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe than 'Can't Cook, Won't Cook, Because The Universe Is Collapsing'.
In addition to this, due to internal wranglings by BBC planners preventing the commissioning of a second series, it is slightly smaller than other programmes of the genre and requires an attention span of only three hours, which for the convenience of the attention-deficit-plagued Artemisterons of Colferbelson VI can be broken up into six segments of half an hour (Artemisterons with especially short attention spans may wish to avoid the DVD release, which contains a bonus disc of behind-the-scenes material, the total running time of which will only cause unnecessary aggravation).
By a not-entirely-strange coincidence, 'unnecessary aggravation' is precisely what Earth descendant Arthur Dent feels after his home planet is destroyed in order to make way for a hyperspatial bypass, and finds himself perpetually distracted in his quest for a decent cup of tea by the need to answer the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Aided in his task by Ford Prefect, a man he is unprepared to discover is actually from a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, Zaphod Beeblebrox, another man who once ruined his attempts to pick up an attractive blonde woman at a party in Islington, Trillian, an attractive blonde woman whom he failed to pick up at a party in Islington, and Marvin, very possibly the most intelligent robot in the universe and very likely the most depressed, Arthur attempts to come to terms with the reality of his situation. In the interests of providing an accurate summation of the plot, it is important to clarify at this time that 'aided' is the Calufraxian word for 'hindered', while 'come to terms with' is the Jagaroth expression for 'become increasingly bewildered by'.
Less clear, however, is the information concerning the actors consigned to inhabit the characters of the story. But while little is known of their identities, a magazine clipping from the year 2005 claimed to offer insight with the names 'Martin Freeman' and 'Mos Def' printed in impressively large silver font. This has been summarily dismissed, however, as most right-thinking people are aware that the year 2005 never happened. Further clues later surfaced when the discovery of a torn sheet of notepaper taped to the back of a filing cabinet in the rodent-infested basement of a small publishing company in Islington listed the names 'Simon Jones', 'David Dixon', 'Mark Wing-Davey', 'Sandra Dickinson' and 'Stephen Moore', under the sentence 'Beware of the mice'. This information was also dismissed, given that the publishing company burned down in 1952, some 29 years before the programme was produced, because it also lists the name 'Peter Jones' as the book, which is unlikely since Jones. a household name in places as far away as Shropshire, would have been too in-demand to make time for such fiddling small parts, and because it claims the music for the series was provided by 'sorcerer Paddy Kingsland and a flock of eagles'. Recent attempts to contact series creator Douglas Adams with a view to shedding light on these and many other baffling conundrums proved unsuccessful upon the discovery that Adams had himself left the Earth in 2001 intent on making several highly improbable discoveries about the universe which he promises to share with humanity at some point in the future, preferably before teatime.
This lack of understanding however should not perturb any newcomers to 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy', since the only thing you really need to know while watching it is the present location of your nearest towel and to avoid purchasing anything that costs 42p on Thursdays. Please note that both the BBC and Megadodo Publications may not be held responsible for the loss of any digital watches during the viewing of this programme.
score 8/10
Muldwych 7 December 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2169849/ |
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9-10-2020 06:39:05