THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY THE QUINTESSENTIAL PHASE: Fit the Twenty-Third

By: Jason Davis
Review Date: Monday, June 06, 2005

There seems to be a pattern forming with respect to the Dirk Maggs produced installments of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. When each series begins, Maggs is forced, as a byproduct of the late Douglas Adams's style, to dramatize a substantial quantity of text to set up the story. Because Adams notoriously re-wrote the first chapters of each book to death, the density of the humor is often quite thick and the precision of the wording without comparison. Thus, in order to maintain the quality of the material, Maggs takes it wholesale from the novels and, unfortunately, places it in the mouth of William Franklyn's book. Alas, as this is what audio books do, the redundancy of the delivery becomes painstakingly obvious. Luckily, Mr. Maggs has a genius for constructing a structure to house Adams's meandering narratives, so the listening experience significantly improves once the set-up has concluded.

Still, MOSTLY HARMLESS begins with a missed opportunity. The book opens with the Grebulon computer realizing that it's sustained damage to its damage sensors, beginning a series of flawed deductions that start the novel. In the adaptation, Maggs has basically handed the opening chapter to Franklyn who, in effect, reads the text. Perhaps a better solution, albeit requiring additional voice talents to be booked, would have been to dramatize the computer's discussion of its situation. Two actors could have portrayed the ship's systems and a dialogue could have effectively ascertained the same results that Book does through monologue.

The usual opening episode complaints aside, once Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and the Trillians start talking, the first episode of the Quintessential Phase takes off at a run. Arthur has returned to Earth only to discover he's on the wrong dimensional plane. Zaphod is once again seeking an audience with the mysterious Zarniwoop (unheard since the second radio series, where he was portrayed then by a then-much-less-famous Jonathan Pryce) played by the now-quite-famous Jonathan Pryce. Ford, avoiding the Hitchhiker's Guide accounting robots, is due for a chat with Zarniwoop as well. Last, but surely not least, Tricia McMillan (voiced by TV Trillian's Sandra Dickinson) is having a personal crisis on an alternate Earth where she failed to fall for Zaphod Beeblebrox's pick-up line. If this all seems quite complicated for an opening episode, keep in mind that Arthur Dent's daughter Random will no doubt appear in an upcoming episode to completely flummox anyone hoping for a sedate and sensible narrative. With this many pieces on the board, Mr. Maggs has his work cut out for him in conveying the convoluted tale in a mere four episodes. If the advert for the imminent CD release is anything to go by, nearly another two episodes worth of material was recorded for the Quintessential Phase, so this commercial release will doubtless fill a few holes left in the broadcast version. Until then, listeners can enjoy the three final installments of the story in its original medium while waiting for word of a RESTRAUNT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE feature film.