10 Secrets We Learned From Doctor Who Season 17 Boxed Set

10. The "Silliness" of Taking Hitchhiker's Guide to Hollywood

Season 17 is notable for the involvement of science fiction legend Douglas Adams as script editor. On the cusp of making it big with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams put together one of Doctor Who's most inventive, intelligent and comedic series ever. The silliness and excess is too much for some fans, and it was certainly not to the taste of Adams' successor Christopher H Bidmead.

One of the many documentaries included in the new boxed set is a tribute to Douglas' work on Doctor Who, and Bidmead pulls no punches on the science fiction authors predilection for daftness. Whilst he clearly admires Adams, he also wonders why the author ever dreamed of taking Hitchhikers to Hollywood. Citing the usual comments about "Brittishness", Bidmead believes that the silliness took over Douglas Adams in the end and he was on to a loser. Easy to say when no Hollywood studios are battering down your doors to adapt The Leisure Hive.

One of Adams' former friends does rather poignantly point out that the author was disappointed with the amount of time he had put into getting the project off the ground, wondering what else Douglas could have achieved instead before his untimely death in 2001.