DVD: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
BBC America (2 DVDs)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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How do you take a book like Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book which fills the imagination with such brilliant imagery, and film it for television in such a way that the finished product doesn't pale drastically by comparison? You don't! No way, no how, not ever. So when they decided to take a swing at it in 1981, the BBC did the only sensible thing: they made it all look so low budget Doctor Who looked like Star Wars by comparison. And why not? Is Arthur the star? No. Is Zaphod the star, Mr. Bigshot President with his dueling heads and sexy girlfriend? No! Nor is the spaceship, the computer or any one thing. The star of the show is Adams' outrageously witty dialogue, and it's so off the wall it only makes sense to make the wall it bounces off entirely out of semi-dry paper mache. The actors, who were all quite good, were probably comedically motivated by the surroundings as well as the dialogue. Nice symbiotic relationships are so hard to come by. This 2-disc set contains the entire TV series and a stack of extras, including a Making Of, a tribute to Adams, a featurette on the making of the BBC radio series that followed, a photo gallery, production notes you can toggle on or off like captions and a few other goodies you have to fish around for on a screen, Easter egg hunt style. Y'know, the list price on this is only 35, but I'll bet anything the core fans would pay 42 just because that number is cooler, far as they're concerned. And if that reference eludes you, you're not properly indoctrinated yet.

© 2003 - DJ Johnson