1/6 - Tertiary Phase 1, Fit the Thirteenth (H2G2)

[ray gower]

1/6 - Tertiary Phase 1, Fit the Thirteenth

All About

Episode 1- Tuesday 21 September 2004 6.30pm, repeated Thursday 23 September 11.00pm

In which Arthur wakes up, Trillian opts out, and Marvin is stuck fast ...

It has been suggested that the comedy in the new series is a bit too dated in modern terms. I would have to agree. It lacks fast patter fixed piece linear comedy repartee and silliness of modern shows.

Instead it sets of in quieter observational style that builds a number of events together in satrical unision. Most refreshing, but you must not expect to be rolling in the aisles, it has to be listened too!

Otherwise the first show provides a rapid flashback to the original series and catches up with the activities of our lost heroes.

The loss of Peter Jones as the voice of the book is neatly covered and explained, but William Franklyn has a voice so simillar I don't think many would actually notice.

The books always ranked as pretty poor compared to the original radio series. If the subsequent parts to the series continue in this vane, then I think the status will continue

 

[ray gower]

From the BBC's own critics at the Radio Times

Yes. This much-hyped new series is good and it does feel as if it's the original radio Hitchhiker instead of, as it really is, a decades-later dramatisation of the books.

BBC Radio 4's most visual producer, Dirk Maggs, conjures up the feel of Douglas Adams's universe and keeps to the original aim - to make Hitchhiker sound like a rock album.

It's a testament to the strength of the original jokes that all these years later you can remember them from the books and the old radio series, but it also means that a lot of this opening episode is too familiar.

And Hitchhiker is old: what felt like incredibly sharp, spiky comedy in 1978 sometimes feels just a bit like disconnected, self-referential and sometimes even schoolboy humour.

But it's event radio and quite brilliantly made.

 

[Dave]

I've just been listening to this and I have to agree with all the comments above. It may be 'event radio' but it's like it was stuck in a timewarp.

To tell the truth, I never found it fall-around-funny even back in 1978. It was a satirical, cynical observation of real life applied to scifi concepts that you really had to think about before you found them funny.

This first episode was too much of a flashback episode -- 'last three decades on the hitchhiker's guide' -- to be very funny.

 

[ray gower]

I think the jokes tend to grow on you, H2G2 always seemed better at the repeat.

Besides it has been so long since it was created some form of re-introduction to the characters was needed.