The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases contains the scripts to the radio adaptations of Douglas Adams' last three Hitch-Hiker's novels.
Script Writer
Dirk Maggs
Radio DetailsDirk Maggs
30 Minutes / BBC Radio 4 / Colour
Tertiary Phase
21/09/04 Fit the Thirteenth
28/09/04 Fit the Fourteenth
05/10/04 Fit the Fifteenth
12/10/04 Fit the Sixteenth
19/10/04 Fit the Seventeenth
26/10/04 Fit the Eighteenth
Quandary Phase
03/05/05 Fit the Nineteenth
10/05/05 Fit the Twentieth
17/05/05 Fit the Twenty-First
24/05/05 Fit the Twenty-Second
Quintessential Phase
31/05/05 Fit the Twenty-Third
07/06/05 Fit the Twenty-Fourth
14/06/05 Fit the Twenty-Fifth
21/06/05 Fit the Twenty-Sixth
Archive Details / CD Releases
All radio episodes of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have been released on CD (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com / HMV.com). The Tertiary Phase (Audible.co.uk / iTunes), Quandary Phase (Audible.co.uk / iTunes) and Quintessential Phase (Audible.co.uk / iTunes) have also been made available as downloads. The television series has been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK (Amazon.co.uk / HMV.com), and on Region 1 DVD in the United States (Amazon.com).
The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases
Publisher Pan Books Format Paperback Publication Date 2005 ISBN 0-330-43510-8 Original Price £12.99 Country UK
General Notes
- The final three Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio serials were based on the books Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless. See images right.
Sadly, despite the fact that the idea of adapting the final three Hitchhiker's books had been around since the 1990s, nothing was to happen until 2004, three years after Douglas Adams had died, aged just 49.
Despite a twenty-four year gap between the production of the Secondary Phase and the Tertiary Phase, the only main actor not to return for the new episodes was Peter Jones (Voice of the Book) who had died in 2000. Death wasn't to prevent the part of Agrajag being played by Douglas Adams in the adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything, which cunningly recycled part of Adams' narration from his audio reading of the novel. - The third novel, Life, the Universe and Everything, is based on a script for an unproduced Doctor Who movie called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen. Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long and Thanks for All the Fish were completely original novels.
- As well as adapting all three of the books for radio, Dirk Maggs was also the director and producer, and in the 1990s had also been responsible for several highly-regarded radio dramas featuring Superman and Batman, which were produced for BBC Radio 1 and broadcast daily in two-minute installments. In 2007 he adapted Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency for BBC Radio 4 with John Langdon, as well as finding time to direct it. Harry Enfield reprised his role as Dirk Gently in The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul in 2008, with an adaptation of The Salmon of Doubt due to air in 2009.
