pubs
You know, the biggest problem with BBC TV’s Hitchhiker’s series is the casting. Ford is written as Tom Baker; he is performed as simultaneously anxious, resigned, wistful, and lost under a script he doesn’t begin to understand. Adams’ sun-dried humor is drowned under misplaced pathos. Indignation is misdirected as panic. I can understand not trying to do a Tom Baker impersonation (although the costumer didn’t quite get that note). In a comedy, however, it would behoove if its largest supporting player had a sense of humor.
Then there’s Zaphod, who is more Keith Richards, circa 2024, than the chiseled jackass he’s built up to be. Trillian (as played by Peter Davison’s then-wife) basically becomes Doctor Who’s own Melanie Bush, except a few pitches higher. At least Arthur and Marvin come through intact.
What are your thoughts on the original BBC Radio broadcast of Hitchhiker’s? I’ve always considered it to be the purest form of the series.
I’m a bit backwards here, in that the radio series, whereas it is the original version of the story, is the one variation I’ve never put the time into. Now that the rest of the books have been adapted, with most of the surviving cast, I should probably get on top of that.