The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Tertiary to Quintessential Phases

The terms Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase and Quintessential Phase describe the radio adaptations of the books Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish and Mostly Harmless recorded in 2003 and 2004 by Above the Title Productions for BBC Radio 4. These are continuations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, consisting of a total of fourteen episodes. They were preceded by the Primary and Secondary Phases. For more on the history of all five series, please see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series).

The fourth and fifth radio series

A fourth and fifth series based on So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish and Mostly Harmless respectively follow. The names for these series were apparently chosen to be more humorous than the standard terms quaternary and quinary, which are rarely used anyway.

Related Topics:
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish - Mostly Harmless - Quaternary - Quinary

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While these were treated as the fourth and fifth Hitchhiker's Guide radio series, they were broadcast in one eight-week stretch from May through June 2005, to stop people (in the words of Dirk Maggs) from "nodding off in between." The tradition of "Fits" continues; these were known as Fit the Nineteenth through Fit the Twenty-Sixth. The manner of broadcasting these episodes carries over from the Tertiary Phase: the original broadcast was on Tuesday, with a Thursday repeat (with the exception of Fit the Nineteenth, which was not repeated due to election coverage). After the initial Tuesday broadcast, audio streams of the episode were available until the following Tuesday (which is a slight change from the Tertiary phase, where streaming audio was only available between Thursday evening repeats). For these final phases, the core cast (Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Susan Sheridan and Stephen Moore) returned, along with William Franklyn as the new voice of The Book (assisted by Rula Lenska). In addition, David Dixon, Sandra Dickinson, Bill Paterson, Roy Hudd and Jonathan Pryce, who had roles in the TV adaptation or the original radio series, all returned, though Dixon and Paterson both play new roles.

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The "Quandary Phase" was released in a 2-CD set in late May 2005. The CDs contain material not present in the original transmissions, due to time constraints. The enclosed booklet contains notes from Dirk Maggs, Simon Jones, Bruce Hyman and Helen Chattwell. A 2-CD release of the "Quintessential Phase" was released in mid-June 2005, with similar material left out of the original transmissions, and notes in the booklet by the same four individuals.

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