The seventh TV show: #317 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
H2G2 (as the title is often abbreviated) has so many incarnations, most of them widely beloved. The book will come up at some point in the future, as will the video game on Pong & Beyond proper, while I'm fairly sure the radio show would be listed if it could be. The movie... well, we'll ignore that. You can tell Douglas Adams' voice from anyone else's.
Adapted mostly from the radio play, as well as parts of the novels, the TV show remains very wordy (the book's narrator voice maintaining a strong presence). The writing is excellent, as witty as ever and simply fun.
What the TV show really adds to the saga, though, are the visuals. The show was made for a relatively cheap amount, with dodgy effects in places, but on the whole, the show gets away with a lot (in a similar way to how future show Doctor Who - the classic version - did at the time). It's effective in the many different ways it uses what it has - the Heart of Gold bridge feels clearly different (and fancier) than the Vogon's ship insides, something that comes across as well in the exteriors. A lot of these are perfectly polished, sleek ships, but instead the messes that fit the universe.
The visuals for the book, which look like primitive computer graphics (special at the time, hand drawn to seem like the old systems they had then) add to this. It feels just simple enough that it adds to the atmosphere and allows for enough in jokes without being overwhelming.
The weirdness of these visuals make the world seem stranger and it generally fits in with all the other stories.
There are good performances in there as well. Simon Jones is Arthur Dent (the part was written for him for the radio play) and the radio play cast that carry over understand their roles and play them well (aside from the occasional line of dialogue that sounds off spoken on TV, but would play better in a book or on the radio - standing around too long doesn't seem as natural). David Dixon is perfect as Ford, even if he needs part of the first episode to get it right and Sandra Dickinson mostly feels like she should have gotten more material with how good she is. Marvin's voice is perfect (again, a carry over) and his design looks great - a clunky robot that fits the remainder of the design, performed as a sad thing that somehow looks perky during the one Guide section that acts for it.
H2G2 is a great story. It's a shame the film just wasn't right and put people off, as this TV adaptation is superior and is rightfully its own great thing (while setting the stage of the likes of Red Dwarf in the future)