Talk:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Primary and Secondary Phases

Untitled

A description for fit 11 and 12 are missing. I included a short summary, but it needs to be rewritten in the same style as the rest of the sections. -- Macfreek

Yep, we know. Neither Morwen nor I had quite gotten to them yet, it's been on my mental to do list for a while, and I just haven't had time. --JohnDBuell | Talk 10:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

All twelve episodes now (finally) have a proper plot synopsis. My thanks again to Morwen for having done the first eight of them (and most of the rest for the Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases)! --JohnDBuell | Talk 04:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Splitting the page

Upon editing, there's a warning that the page is 40k in size. Would it make sense to split the page into two (obviously one for each Phase) and leave a small "index" page here to prevent broken links elsewhere? IainP (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not really that worried about page length at this point, as it's unlikely that it will grow much more, now that the episode synopses are done. --JohnDBuell 19:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Links

I've gone through and added/corrected links to all the minor places and characters. The links have (hopefully!) not been repeated throughout the document, though I've linked the character's name in the cast list preceeding the first episode in which they appear and in the first episode description in which they appear. This does seem to make some kind of sense as far as a reader browsing the articles should be within easy clicking of a link, dependant on whether they're looking at the cast list or the text. I hope this duplication is acceptable. IainP (talk) 19:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Good Article Status

Why is this up for GA?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand why it is up for GA status. It's well-written, but all it is is a bunch of plot synopsizes. I can't understand why that merits GA status. -Dark Kubrick 14:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Not enough references

I failed this article as a GA simply because of the major lack of references. Some P. Erson 14:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Replies

To DK - There are six lists of episodes with Featured List status already. Granted, they're all on TV, which is one reason why I thought a list of Radio Episodes might go forward. The GA process as it exists now doesn't really have a 'Good List' status for lists that haven't quite made Featured List status.

To SPE - If you have a look at these same Featured Lists, you'll note that they too used just the episodes themselves as the references, which ARE listed in this article. Unlike a few of the Featured Lists for TV episodes, I've NOT used websites, but in fact published script books and copies of the CDs and cassettes of the episodes in question.

--JohnDBuell 15:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

GA review #2

• Since there are only episodes' plots and no much is said about everything else. I'd say add a criticism section or a review section. I'd try to find out how the narrators were chosen, how the scenes were done (any special effects???) and how good was that. These are only insights into the bettering of the article as it can be seen more of an article than a list IMHO. I would just add a few more sections and voilà you would turn a list article into an article in itself. Lincher 18:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

A few of these things are covered in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) as part of a general history of all five series. I'll keep this in mind though. Finding criticism/reviews for series broadcast 28 and 26 years ago (respectively) will be difficult. --JohnDBuell 18:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I added a brief paragraph about how casting was done, but Adams's own notes about casting from Don't Panic or Geoffrey Perkins's similar notes the original radio script book are too short to really make use of without some serious copyvio! --JohnDBuell 23:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe just quoting that would be a way to go around the copyright ... that's a way to do it (though it has to be well referenced). What has been added is a nice addition too, as I now see the article it would probably fit as a GA more than a GL, IMO. Maybe seeking help at the Wikipedia:Good articles/Disputes would settle all this. Lincher 23:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I was looking over the FL criteria, and this doesn't really fit. It's a list of episodes, not a list of LINKS to episodes. I did point out that maybe a GL program would make a nice companion to the GA program at some point though. --JohnDBuell 23:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Music

I've added the music references onto the first six episodes because it seem logical to link the third-party music with the episodes they are used in. It assists with the question "what is that bit of music?" which seems a reasonable reason to look in an wikipedia. ••Briantist•• talk 19:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about this, as it's been covered in the radio series article already, and just makes this redundant. Leave it if you must, but I'm just not sure it's necessary. --JohnDBuell 23:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Airdates

I've included the airdates because they show the pattern of the broadcasts and highlight the playout of the Christmas epsisode (Fit the Seventh) and how the second series was originally the last five episodes. ••Briantist•• talk 20:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Original airdates are already listed! Why do we need the repeats? Plus why list only UK repeats, and not US transmissions, Canadian transmissions, World Service transmissions, etc etc etc. I'm going to remove these. --JohnDBuell 23:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, let's see.. the programme was broadcast in the UK??? The radio programme was a UK hit first, and the broadcast pattern is interesting, I have restored this ••Briantist•• talk 04:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was FIRST broadcast in the UK, but it's very UK centric to ONLY include UK transmissions. That's not appropriate. Don't forget that English Wikipedia is a project for ALL English speakers, NOT just the UK ones. --JohnDBuell 00:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

The first time I bought the CD set of this, it cost me £42. ••Briantist•• talk 20:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) says the article needs an Out-of-universe perspective introduction. ••Briantist•• talk 20:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Every episode has a plot synopsis. If people don't realize each episode is talking about the events IN that episode, they need their reality examined. --JohnDBuell 23:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that the plot is largely irellivant, and setting the context as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) ••Briantist•• talk 04:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Specifically, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) This may include: the author or creator; the design; real-world factors that have influenced the work; its popularity among the general public; its reception by critics ••Briantist•• talk 05:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Fine, if you can find proper citations. Your previous version had next to none. It still, in my opinion, is not necessary to explain any more than plot synopses, as we have the FEATURED The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) article already. --JohnDBuell 00:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned about this...

The article seems much more like a list than an article, there's two self-references in the lead, and the lead itself is only three sentences, surely not summarizing at least most of the content in this very long article. But, from a GA standpoint, i'm sort of unsure about what to do about this, just call it a list and ignore it or fail it for not having a lead summarizing the article adequatly? The last line of the lead, which passes the buck onto the rest of the article, really doesn't seem to be in the spirit of WP:LEAD. Homestarmy 04:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Which line are you refering to? ••Briantist•• talk 13:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

"Cast lists and plot summaries for the first two series follow.". There's no attempt to summarize much of anything concerning actual content of the radio series in the lead it seems. Homestarmy 15:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I thought "Do not read on for the plot as you will miss the point! For as a hitchhiker it is (à la Monty Python[5]) the journey that matters, not the destination" covered it. I'm happy to add more if it's necessary ••Briantist•• talk 15:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Summarizing some of the most important stuff in these phases should do, there's probably enough for two paragraphs, you can get rid of the first self-reference and use material from that article for a first paragraph, and use important parts of the content of the shows for the second paragraph. Homestarmy 00:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Split

This article should be split into The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Secondary Phase. The current title of the article is awful and at 52 kB, there is enough certainly content for each "phase" to stand on its own. I am going to delist this GAC until this is impliented, after which both articles can be nominated. --SeizureDog 12:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

First since the 1950s?

The first radio science fiction since Journey Into Space in the 1950s,

So what's the BBC Audio "Classic Radio Sci-Fi" series, including adaptations of The War of the Worlds (1967), The Day of the Triffids (1968) and Aliens in the Mind (1977)? Timrollpickering 12:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Isnt this a bit trivial ---- although a BBC World Service listener in India strongly objected to "Robots taking part in a comedy show" ???????

it appears as though some random person has made this entry.59.182.137.183 (talk) 12:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Nishant

Original Broadcast

It says: "The first radio series was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March and April 1978." That is true, buit it falsely implies that this was the first radio broadcast. The radio premiere was on the BBC World Service, I think in the autumn of 1976. I heard the first episode, at 00:30am (Yes, I was a 20-year-old hippie student; I used to get whacked at night, and listen to the World Service - weird, man). I can't easily reference these claims, but I bet someone can.

Imagine how it messes with your head, when you're expecting death and destruction (we'd just heard the World News at 00:00, Cuba and Angola were invading Belgian Congo with heavy weapons, Congo were appealing to the world for help), and next you get S1E1 of HHGTTG.

I am not a source, by the way - not even an unreliable one; I freely volunteer that I was off my head for most of 1976. MrDemeanour (talk) 22:04, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Escape from Milliways

Maybe my memory fails me, but I thought they ended up in Disaster Areas ship that was to crash into the sun. And then the dysfunctional teleporter put Ford and Arthur back on earh. If a different version, that is worth mentioning. Tuntable (talk) 00:54, 13 October 2018 (UTC)