One would think that if you were buying a DVD of "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy," you would be interested in watching "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." "Not at all" was how much the BBC cared about this evident fact. The VHS tape was recorded at EP speed, and looked terrible! Now, on the 2-DVD set, it is still over-compressed and of mediocre quality.They could easily have done the transfer at 2-hour, hi-res format, putting the first four shows on Disk 1 and the other two plus some extras on Disk 2. This is what I was expecting when I saw it was a 2-disk set. Instead, to my horror, they crammed the entire 6 episodes onto a single DVD, at four-hour format, and the second disk consists completely of extras.So if you're most interested in seeing the same clips and the same interviews repeated again and again with slightly different editing, and sleep-inducing out-takes of actors blowing their lines and then saying the "F" word, this set is for you.Otherwise, I wish I could say, look elsewhere. Unfortunately, this is the only game in town.I can't believe it's now over $40! I felt ripped off when I paid $26! They should have made a version available with a single disk, for those of us who are actually interested in the program, rather than a bunch of souvenirs from the Douglas Adams Fan Club. That way, at least you'd know how poor the quality was going to be before you shelled out the ridiculously high price.To give the set its due, it does look better than I've ever seen it before, either on PBS or the VHS tape. I could read things in the computer graphics that I have never been able to make out before. And, with closed captioning, I was able to get a few lines that I'd never caught.And there is at least one interesting thing in most of the extras. The "Peter Jones Introduction," buried down at the bottom of the second screen, is the best of the lot, the only one that's good all the way through."The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" is the funniest show that's ever been on TV. It's really too bad that hoodwinking as much money as possible out of the public was the BBC's only goal, and that they have treated us and the program so shabbily.

A quarter century before Douglas Adams's (happy birthday, Douglas!) famous book became the movie that most of us probably know, BBC made this quirky miniseries based on it. True, much of the miniseries is hard for us Americans to understand, but it still works to just luxuriate in the pure wackiness of it and consider what our role in the universe really is. Parts of "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" do come across as a little silly - namely the whole "resistance is useless" sequence - but they probably intended it to be far out, so it's all good.Anyway, it's just a pleasure to see these people being totally outrageous in their humor. Some of those numerical coincidences still have me befuddled! But no matter, if ever I have to answer a really hard question, I'll just remember that the answer is...42. All in all, a classic. I like the movie version better, but this one is still pretty neat. Up in that great spaceship in the sky, Douglas Adams must be proud to have been known for this.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981) was a mini-series adaptation of Douglas Adams' first three novels. I saw this B.B.C. mini-series on videotape about ten years ago. I was pleased with the show. Despite a small budget, the actors and the writing was enough to make this one a winner. It was cheesy enough to please me and the film makers captured the atmosphere of the novels. Too bad they never made a follow up to the series like the novels in the series. I was a little leery about watching this but after seeing the first episode I was fairly impressed.If you enjoyed the books then by all means watch this near perfect adaptation of Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide series. The creator has a cameo appearance in the beginning. David Prowse (Darth Vader) has a guest spot as an enormous bar bouncer. Shot on video and 16 mm film. The ending is unforgettable.Highly recommended.

Well, what can I say? After going to watch the utterly disappointing Hollywood version, this is the one screen adaptation, so far at least. I was lucky enough to buy the BBC series in DVD before and despite the cheap production, everything is more than made up for the witty script and the characters' depth. Douglas himself appears in one of the books' entries on episode 2. Things are not perfect, of course, specially on the effects department and in the questionable casting of Trillian, but overall this is much better than the Disney-influenced movie, whose Trillian itself is much worse. And Zaphod has actually two heads here, and the tea-induced computer jam. In words of Marvin, the film's "first half an hour was the worst, and the second as well, but from there everything went downhill". But the TV series is definitely worth watching.