For clarification, the six-part trilogy has had its parts labeled "phases". I guess it works, at least well enough to keep the parts in their separate CD cases.
The Primary Phase is the original radio series which kicked off the phenomenon. This is the sources which the LP could only emulate, the TV show evoke, and the movie aspire to. It fairly bristles with wit and is that best of all stories, one so filled with ideas that they battle to come out. It's not unlike Silver Age Jack Kirby comics, full of concepts which are touched on before getting slapped aside to make way for another. The brutal commentary on the modern world is not done with much charity but the humor makes the dose drop more easily for those offended readily. The eventual quest for the question for the answer is "42" is as always, a delight.
For all intents and purposes, the Secondary Phase is a coherent part (as much as anything is coherent in this saga) follow up to the first six episodes and we find out who actually gave the order for Earth to be demolished. This series was produced very quickly, so quickly in fact that not all the sound effects were put in before it was time to broadcast. If you've read the second novel, from which adapts this radio play, you will find many differences, and not small ones either. The first series was a shot in the dark and had the freedom which comes from few expectations, this one was created under the gun of deadline and high expectations. It's not as good.
The Tertiary Phase of the radio drama was not created until this century and while the late Douglas Adams had input in 1993 when this adaption of the third novel was first proposed, he was long dead before it was actually recorded early in this century. This production moves the Hitchhiker's Guide from its rowdy roots to a fully developed production with more modern techniques. It succeeds in many ways because they were able to reassemble the original cast. The loss of Peter Jones as the voice of the Guide is the only real change and the substitute serves well despite lacking the wonderous tone of lamentation which informed the original performances by Jones.
The Quandary Phase gives us a story with a rather different tone. In this one our hero Arthur Dent finds romance with a woman named Fenchurch, the very girl who had seen enlightenment just before the Earth was destroyed in the original story. Her existence is a mystery as it the very Earth on which they both find themselves. This is based on the novel by Adams which reads the most traditional and that shows up in this radio adaptation. Unlike the other Hitchhiker stories the audience is encouraged to feel for the characters as approximates of real people. There's a sadness to this one that the others miss. I'm not sure it's a good thing either.
The makers of the Quinteseential Phase, the penultimate show is indicative of this last set of radio plays felt comfortable making changes to Adams' story and mostly it was to make the yarns a tad more consistent. None of the radio plays beyond the first two have the energy, and even the second one is let potent than the first, but this one is close. We see Megadodo lose control of the Hitchhiker's Guide as Ford searches for corruption (he wants to join in I think), Arthur makes sandwiches, and we meet another Trillian (I think) who presents Arthur with a daughter named "Random" (not conceived in the way you think). to be replaced by the There's a sense that the series has been riding the momentum of that amazing first impression for quite a while and the gas has all but left the balloon so to speak.
The Hexagonal Phase of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is based on a novel Douglas Adams did not write. It is based on ideas he put forth, but a chap by the name of Eoin Colfer actually wrote the book. I've never read the book, so I cannot compare it to the radio play, but I suspect that there like in the radio show there's an effort to tie up the story a bit (as if the plot really ever mattered). There is not one novel or television production as good as the radio shows (again I haven't read the sixth one). I don't view the "trilogy" as a narrative really, but a continuing series of events, not unlike life itself which almost never make sense in the end, nor have the best ending possible. One issue to remember with this final installment is that it was made in 2018, forty years after the first one and nearly fifteen years after the later phases. Many cast changes had to be made. Still, the radio shows present this seemingly haphazard quality better than any of the other formats. To that extent the six radio dramas are successful in the extreme.
And that wraps my month-long look at The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Until next time remember -- DON'T PANIC!
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I recently listened to the entire "Hitchhiker" radio series. I gotta say, one of the things I love is the seeming randomness of the whole enterprise. Every other sci-fi franchise seems so driven to create detailed, consistent universes with continuity and structure... and the Hitchhiker team seemed to look at that and went "pffff" and just did whatever seemed like a good idea at the time. It embraces the chaos in a way that would drive contemporary fandom nuts.
ReplyDeleteI think the randomness comes from the lack of direction the series had. Adams and his allies were largely making up as they went along, but that the early shows a delightful playfulness. As you say the series was not in the least burdened by continuity, though the radio series did it better than the novels.
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