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

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Tertiary Phase, based on Life, the Universe and Everything, ran on BBC Radio 4 from Tuesday 21 September to 26 October 2004, with repeats on the following Thursdays.

[1]: 149 Most of the original radio series cast returned, with the exception of three, due to their deaths: Richard Vernon (died 1997) as Slartibartfast, replaced by Richard Griffiths; Peter Jones (died 2000), replaced by his friend William Franklyn, with some brief excerpts from Jones' original narration used in Fit the Thirteenth of the radio series disguised as the Book's speech-generation system changing as part of updates to the Guide from the publisher; David Tate (died 1996), who played a multitude of minor roles in the two original radio series including Eddie, the Heart of Gold's computer.

[2] The idea was re-proposed during Tom Baker's tenure in the title role, and again for a potential (but unmade) second television series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The disc contains as extras: the full version of the Krikkit Song, a photogallery, the original online and radio trailers, the appearance of the series on Pick of the Week, and thirty minutes of behind the scenes video in five short segments.

The US edition of the same novel substituted "Belgium" for "fuck", as well as the explanation for why the former word is considered to be devastatingly rude in the rest of the galaxy, which is drawn from Fit the Tenth of the Secondary Phase.

He walks to the centre of the cricket pitch, and asks to be given the Ashes saying that they are "vitally important for the past, present and future safety of the Galaxy".

Back on Slartibartfast's ship, Ford and Arthur watch the Krikkit War Crimes Trial, presided over by Judiciary Pag.

The episode opens with a Guide entry about the Silastic Armorfiends, a very aggressive species, who apparently were the first race ever to shock a computer, by asking it (Hactar) to design the "Ultimate Weapon".

Trillian is explaining that Krikkit's history is a sequence of contrived coincidences that was set up in order to provoke a race into wanting to destroy the universe.

There, they meet Hactar, who explains that when the Silastic Armorfiends tried to destroy him, they failed, and because of his cellular nature, he was eventually able to coalesce sufficiently to influence things.

His final words are "I have fulfilled my function..." They have in the mean-time picked up a man named Prak, who was a witness at a trial when the Krikkit robots broke in and stole the Perspex Pillar.

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).

Arthur discovers that the entry for "Earth" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which formerly had been edited down to "Mostly Harmless", has been replaced, with Ford's original full version.

The contents of the house are as he left them, apart from a large pile of junk mail just inside the front door, and a strange bowl, bearing the inscription "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish".

When there he attempts to make a donation to "save the dolphins" but is met with mockery from the "Ecological Man" (played by David Dixon, Ford Prefect from the television series.

At her urging, Arthur figures out that her feet do not touch the ground, leading him to suspect that she also can fly, and to a romantic tryst on the wing of a Heathrow-bound airplane.

Curious about the dolphins' fate, Arthur and Fenchurch head to California to visit Wonko the Sane, a scientist considered the foremost expert on the species.

Wonko, who lives in an inside-out house called "The Outside of the Asylum" and claims to have had conversations with green-winged angels, tells Arthur and Fenchurch that they all received the same glass bowls—farewell gifts from the dolphins that, when pinged, play their final message to humans.

Meanwhile, a Vogon inquiry reveals that Earth's location in a plural zone means that any destroyed version is highly likely to be replaced by an alternate one.

However, on a commercial liner flight, Fenchurch disappears, and the ship's crew deny she ever existed... At the conclusion of the show's credits, a tie-in website is announced: McKenna's All-Weather Haulage.

The start of some of the plot threads from Mostly Harmless were introduced in the Quandary Phase (though they did not appear in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish)—notably the Vogons discovering that Earth had re-appeared and resolving to destroy all versions of it, Arthur having sold his DNA, a mention that Trillian now has a child and is now a reporter.

The creature at the information desk explains that beings from a "plural" region are not advised to travel in hyperspace due to the risk of slipping in dimensions.

Andrews has sensed that McMillan is unhappy about the stars—McMillan reveals that she met an alien (Zaphod Beeblebrox) at a party once (a variation of the previous flashback ensues), but didn't get to go with him because she fetched her bag.

He climbs into the building through the ventilation system, disables a security robot (which he dubs "Colin") by hardwiring it to be happy all the time, and then gets it to cover his entrance to the editor's office, finding out along the way that the Guide has been taken over and is no longer owned by Megadodo Publications.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Tricia McMillan agrees to go with the Grebulons and work out a system of astrology that would be valid on the planet Persephone (Rupert), in exchange for exclusive rights to the story.

The alternate Tricia McMillan has been taken to Rupert and meets the Grebulon leader, who explains their problem of having forgotten everything, and their reasoning in trying to gain purpose through astrology.

Ford's spaceship itself he obtained by jumping from a building and falling into it, its previous occupant having accidentally pressed the wrong sort of eject button.

She is interrupted by a member of the hotel staff, telling her that a spaceship has landed in Regent's Park, and the young girl on the ship is demanding to see her.

Arthur explains it is impossible for him to die (and hence for the planet to be destroyed), but the strange man goes for Random's gun and she ends up shooting him.

The Guide then details the true reality of what happened: the Babel Fish brought Arthur, Ford, Random, Zaphod and Trillian (now merged with Tricia) to Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Table 42.