The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy President; the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android; and Trillian, formerly known as Tricia McMillan, a woman Arthur once met at a party in Islington and the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction thanks to Beeblebrox' intervention. The first radio series comes from a proposal called "The Ends of the Earth": six self-contained episodes, all ending with Earth's being destroyed in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realized that he needed someone on the planet who was an alien to provide some context, and that this alien needed a reason to be there. Adams finally settled
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which was broadcast in January and February 1981 on UK television station BBC Two. The adaptation follows the original radio series in 1978 and 1980, the first novel and double LP, in 1979, and the stage shows, in 1979 and 1980, making it the fifth iteration of the guide. The series stars Simon Jones as Arthur Dent, David Dixon as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Sandra Dickinson as Trillian and