h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

no, it was not because at no point until your spoiler post was it mentioned that the result of the Democratic nomination had been resolved. To be fair though given the amount of time being devoted to Jimmy Smits campaign I think you would have to be pretty stupid not to see where that was going.

No riotact's accidental post does count as a spoiler because when Alan Alda's character makes his very first appearance in episode 8 (of 22 episodes in season 6) his character is identified as: 1) a Republican and 2) a potential candidate for his party's nomination for President.

Therefore by quoting an opinion that the final outcome will be Alda over Smits by a small margin implies that the chappy from LA Law (and wasn't that just the most *terrible* TV show...) will have won the Democrat nomination at some point before the end of the season's run.

Anyway, none of this really matters because: 1) riotact has said sorry about his ignorance of how far us Brits are through the season 5/6 run, and hence his post 2) I don't think that Demon Drawer is reading this.

Quite right I've just had a BBC journo on the phone.

Also DD is prone to come across spoilers all the time on various US politics blogs all hte time and just enjoys watching how the show gets to those conclusions.

BTW apart from last nights More4 showing I am up to date. I was out at a Lib Dem soiree last night, and John Spencer did get mentioned on occasion in relation to the weekends news.

BureauGris, I disagree with you on this one. Until you confirmed certain opinions as fact in post 20 no spoiler had been given, riotact's opinions given in post 15 are broadly no different to the opinions I had already drawn from what I had seen so far.

Actually we are currently just about New Hampshire Priamry stage in our viewing therefore we have not yet shorn up the nomination of either party. Therefore disclosing the nominations for President on here is a spolier. It would be like me getting out of my time machine now and telling just who is the next Leader of hte Lib dems right now, no worse we don't know who the candidates are yet.

I too took it as a spoiler but can also see that it could have been riotacts's thoughts on what they thought looked inevitable.

Spouse has already 'declared' that Alan Alda's character will win because he's the more famous, apparently, so I was expecting it anyway.

And it's only TV

My fave USA pres would be a tie between Bartlett and Palmer (24).

(Bye bye Charles, a real life politician - liked you )

Jules

That donlt mean a thing Clinton beat George H.W. Bush and somehow George W. Bush managed to beat Gore. Fame it all it is cracked up to be.

riotact used the phrase "distinct impression" and I have to say I had the same impression from what we have seen of season 6 in the UK until BureauGris brought attention to the point it did even occur to me that riotact was outside of the UK and ahead of us, for me the spoiler was post 20 when BureauGris changed speculation to fact.

I meant the actor was the more famous, btw.

I wouldn't know 'cos I never saw his most famous programme.

Jules

As someone who knows nothing about the West Wing and has never seen one episode, should I start on E4 now or would I need to start from series 1. My interest has been piqued by the fact that Alda is one of my all time favourite actors. Also the gorgeous Danica McKellar from The Wonder Years (entry close to the front page by the way) plays Elsie Snuffin as a recurring character apparently. Sell it to me please as I am a political animal and fear I may be missing out!
SBE

Now that is a tough question. Most of the relevant back story you would need to understand a current episode would be shown at the start of the episode, so you should havea fair idea of what is going on. However, you might miss out on some of the subtle back story between charactors which the people who have seen all (or almost all, darn season 5) will pick up on insticntively.

I think if you are a political animal you can probably see any episode and get hooked on the speed, attention detail, humour, charactor development etc of hte piece and then crave to get the back sotry filled in.

What do others think?

I fear you may be missing out too!

DD is right, you could enjoy an episode as a stand-alone.

I think you could watch one of the current series, find you like it and then endeavour to watch the rest in order from the beginning.

Seeing one of the later episodes out of context shouldn't worry you too much and when you get to it again it will be different anyway as you'll know more of the background.

That's my view

Jules

DD and Jules. I will settle down to the episode tonight and report back!
SBE

Maybe he's rewatching it on More4 +1

i think GD has absolved me on his own with post n°22...

because that episode n°8 is the last i saw; anyone who has seen that knows as much as i do about what's going to happen.

but hey, for brits you seem to know very little about royalty. there aren't just that many guys who can BE president on american television. if AA is in the running, no one else has a snowball's chance in hell...

of course, that's only my opinion! no insider's information!

And now Channel 4 are showing every single episode right from the beginning on their More4 digital channel.

As for season 7: I didn't watch it as the timings clashed with other things that I wanted to do, and I can't work out how to get my VCR to tape stuff that comes via the freeview box, so I couldn't use that option.

Me not watching the last season isn't a problem as I've got the DVD box set on order from Amazon, which should arrive at the end of this month. I'm not bothered that I kind of know how the story ends - ie who won - as it's the story and the acting and the script and whatever that happens in the build up to that last 10 minutes that really matters. And anyway, lets face it, given the blanket coverage of the climax to the show that was broadcast on Ch4 and its siblings, it was pretty damn obvious what the outcome was.

Fab show that I did not find when it first started I hope I can find the time to see it on More4 ...

I've had an e-mail from Amazon saying that the DVD's are on their way



The next step will be the postcard from GPO saying "You were out when we tried to deliver...". I do wonder what percentage of packages and parcels get returned to the main sorting office to await collection. I know that when I was in my eBay-ing phase I got on first name terms with the guys at the collection office as I was there so frequently.

How exciting ...

I actually think that the % is very high. I have certainly been home on days I have been expecting a package to find that the postman has delivered one of those cards with the post without event knocking or ringing the bell to see if I was home. One time I was in my kitchen - which overlooks the path to the house when he delivered a card telling me to collect something I think they call it a delivery system but actually often its a collection from somewhere vaguely close to home but still not that convenient service