The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Sixth

 "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe..."

And so it ends, with a twist that was much more powerful the first time but still feels worryingly true: the human race is fundamentally a race of useless management consultants, marketing executives and so forth- no civil servants, of course. We would have been on the "A" ark. Yes we would. 

And then there's what is, apparently, the ultimate question- although I'm not sure why it would be in Arthur's subsconscious in the first place, as he's descended from Golgafrinchans and thus surely not part of Deep Thought's computer program- is a mathematical equation that is incorrect. This does, indeed, explain so much about the universe. 

The Golgafinchams are great, and Aubrey Morris in particular. It's a powerfu end to a splendid visual adaptation. It may look cheap, ot may look dated, but it's bloody brilliant.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Fifth

 "The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."

Although I have, naturally, experienced the events of this episode repeatedly, and in multiple media, it is nonetheless fresher to me than the preceding four episodes, and the ideas are, of course, as awesome as anything that comes from the mind of Douglas Adams.

We have a rock star, spending a year dead for tax reasons, whose over-the-top gigs illustrate precisely why the galaxy so urgently needs punk. We have Colin Jeavons, whom I tend to think of as Lestrade from the Granada Sherlock Holmes, as a splendidly over-the-top compere. We even have an utterly unrecogniseable Peter Davison as the Dish of the Day, which longs to be eaten.

But Marvin is, as ever, the best bit. This is wonderful stuff.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Fourth

 "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

This episode is, of course, where the novel ends: it is also, if I recall correctly, where we diverge from the radio series. But that's after the ecxplosion at the end: until then we hae plenty of Douglas Adams' signature absurdity to look at.

The whole thing about Deep Thought and the Ultimate Question is conceptually awesome, of course, however dated the computing looks forty years later. Yet there's more going on than this- the ridiculing of philosophers (personally, I think we need rather more of them in today's accessible cultural media, but...) and the fact that they behae exactly ike the more rigidly-minded trade union leaders of the time. I somehow doubt Arthur Scargill would have enjoyed this episode much.

Yet we also have an absurd, timey-wimey series of events cause by Arthur's tremendous difficulty with his lifestyle,and a wonderful sequence about the mice offering to buy Arthur's brain: there will never again be a sitcom quite like this. And that's before we even get to the glorious piss take of cops at the end...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Third

 "Is there any tea on this spaceship?"

Tonight was going to be the finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but Disney Plus is down, so I've brought this forward instead. Expect to see your previously scheduled blog post on Monday, probably, stuff permitting.  

Anyway, Douglas Adams' magnum opus continues to unfold televisually here, with those elements that have dated continuing to charm, forty years later. I've mentioned Zaphod's no doubt budget-busting animatronic head, but we also have fairly blatant switched between the Heart of Gold, in studio, and the legendary planet of Magrathea, on film. It is, of course, also amusing that the ancient Magratheans should have left a venerable answerphone message.

But the point of all this is Adams' gloriously absurd conceptual coolness, all filtered through his gloriously individual sense of humour. We get our first hints at the true history and purpose of Earth. Yet this, along with the narration of the demise of the old Asimov-like Galactic Empire, plays once more with notions of extinctions and the ends of civilisations, yet lightly, which possibly gives away the Cold War themes of nuclear holocaust. If only nuclear missiles really would turn into a whale and a bowl of petunias.

Yes, I know what you're thinking, but sod Agrajag.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Second

 "Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

You can tell a superior sitcom (if, indeed, that is what this is, with its ever-shifting "situation" by how it uses narrative cleverness and manages to be funny at the same time. Here, even the "previously on" bit is hilarious, featuring a fun little Reginald Perrin-like cameo from Douglas Adams and lots of 1981-ness, with jokes about digital watches.

The Guide is again used cleverly in order to excuse any kind of narrative trickery Adams like- and the Improbability Drive is a splendid concept that excuses the absurd number of coincidences going on here, serving to subtly introduce Zaphod, Trillian, the wonderful Marvin and the new status quo. It's all well enough realised by the standards of the time, and I think that afer forty years we can just about see that animatronic second head as a charming relic of the time as opposed to, say, embarrassingly awful. Although not as awful as the poetry of Paula Millstone Jennings, which I reproduce below because I'm evil...

 

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.

They lay. They rotted. They turned

Around occasionally.

Bits of flesh dropped off them from

Time to time.:And sank into the pool's mire.

They also smelt a great deal.

That, however, in no way makes this episode anything other than a triumph.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the First

 "They hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't..."

Before I start, two things.

One: I don't blog sitcoms. Except when I do. This is one of those exceptions which simply, obviously, need to be made.

Two: I know Hitchhikers very well. I first saw this aged about ten when my parents, rather wisely, introduced me to it. They'd seen the original broadcast in 1981 and, indeed, my dad happened to catch the first episode of the radio series in 1978, and was immediately hooked. I may not have got into it in March 1978, being under a year old and that, but I later made up for it. Let's just say that, over the last three and a had decades, I've come to know the radio series (all of them) and the books (ditto) moderately well.

I'm not, therefore, going to spend these blogs recounting the plot, and the witty lines. Or, at least, I'll keep tht to a minimum. Instead I'll remark on such things as the perfection that is Peter Jones' voice, or that Simon Jones is Arthur Dent. I'll also remark on how long ago 1981 was on the evidence of this: a pub landlord offering change from a fiver for six pints, or those bowler hatted city gents coming out of the tube station. It's also obligatory to point out how quaint the Guide itself now seems in our internet age. Also, the Ventraxi is literally a Muppet an the Vogons look rubbish.

But I don't care. This is magnificent. It's not just the wit, or the pefrformances. It's how the demolition of Arthur's home parallels the destruction of the Earth, or how the indifferent officiousness of Mr Prosser parallels that of the Vogon captain. This is a universe of harsh, heartless officialdom but with room for hoopy froods to hang out and chill regardless, provided they know where their towels are.