8.4/107 votes#1 - City of Death (1)
Season 17 Episode 5 - Aired 9/29/1979
Paris, 1979. The Doctor and Romana are here on holiday, but something is disturbing the flow of time. Could the time travel experiments of Count Scarlioni be to blame?
Director: Michael Hayes
Writer: Douglas Adams
8.2/106 votes#2 - City of Death (3)
Season 17 Episode 7 - Aired 10/13/1979
The Doctor and Romana unwrap an intricate plot involving aliens, time travel and the Mona Lisa. How is Count Scarlioni living in two times at once? And what does he want?
Director: Michael Hayes
Writer: Douglas Adams
8.0/106 votes#3 - City of Death (2)
Season 17 Episode 6 - Aired 10/6/1979
Captured by the Count, the Doctor and Romana uncover an elaborate plan to steal the Mona Lisa. But there is more to Scarlioni's plans than a simple theft.
Director: Michael Hayes
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.8/106 votes#4 - City of Death (4)
Season 17 Episode 8 - Aired 10/20/1979
Scaroth is determined to go back 400 million years in time to prevent a mistake. But the Doctor must stop him – because the consequences would be disastrous.
Director: Michael Hayes
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.5/102 votes#5 - Episode 4
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 1/26/1981
Arthur learns about the Great Project - the second most powerful computer in existence, called Deep Thought, created to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. The computer comes back online much later on to give its final answer - 42. The scientists are understandably hacked off, even more so when Deep Thought cannot tell them what the Ultimate Question is, and a new computer, called the Earth, has to be built for that purpose. The current owners of the Great Project, Trillian's pet mice, want to cut open Arthur's head to find the Question, but when the crew are all trapped behind a bank of exploding computers, all appears lost.
Director: Alan J.W. Bell
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.4/105 votes#6 - Episode 1
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1/5/1981
Arthur Dent, a perfectly ordinary Earthman, is surprised to wake up one day to find bulldozers outside his house with orders to knock it down to build a by-pass. He is even more surprised later on in the pub when his best friend Ford Prefect reveals himself to be from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. The two are forced to hitch a lift on one of the advancing Vogon spacecraft which proceed to blow up the Earth to make way for an interspace bypass. Our two heroes find themselves trapped in a storage room in hyperspace, with only a menacing Vogon guard for company.
Director: Alan J.W. Bell
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.0/103 votes#7 - Episode 2
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 1/12/1981
Arthur and Ford have been discovered. Vogon Captain Jeltz tortures them by reading his poetry. He then has Arthur and Ford thrown off his ship, to what must be certain death - except for one improbable miracle. At the last second, an infinite-improbability prototype ship (which can pass through every point in the Universe) rescues them. What is rather surprising is that Zaphod Beeblebrox, the hip cat who stole the spaceship, is vaguely familiar to Arthur. And so is Zaphod's companion, Trillian.
Director: Alan J.W. Bell
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.0/105 votes#8 - The Pirate Planet (1)
Season 16 Episode 5 - Aired 9/30/1978
Planet Zanak, unknown time. The Doctor and Romana are seeking the planet Calufrax where the second segment waits. They are in the right place and the right time… but on the wrong planet.
Director: Pennant Roberts
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.0/104 votes#9 - The Pirate Planet (2)
Season 16 Episode 6 - Aired 10/7/1978
The Doctor begins to investigate the mysteriously wealthy planet Zanak. Mentiads, a deranged Captain, strange omens, miraculous mines – what does it all mean? And what does it have to do with the Key to Time?
Director: Pennant Roberts
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.0/104 votes#10 - The Pirate Planet (3)
Season 16 Episode 7 - Aired 10/14/1978
The Mentiads take the Doctor, Romana and Kimus to a reunion with K9 and Mula, where they set about trying to defeat the Captain.
Director: Pennant Roberts
Writer: Douglas Adams
7.0/104 votes#11 - The Pirate Planet (4)
Season 16 Episode 8 - Aired 10/21/1978
The Captain and Xanxia work toward their secret goals. Both depends on the pirate planet consuming one more victim - Earth.
Director: Pennant Roberts
Writer: Douglas Adams
6.6/107 votes#12 - Party Political Broadcast
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 12/5/1974
Sketches in this final episode include The Most Awful Family in Britain, Patient Abuse, Brigadier and Bishop and The Man Who Finishes Other People's Sentences.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Douglas Adams
6.5/102 votes#13 - Episode 3
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 1/19/1981
The starship Heart of Gold is headed for the planet Magrathea, a planet which it is generally agreed does not exist. In trying to land on Magrathea's surface, the crew faces an ancient nuclear missile defence system, escaping only when Arthur turns on the Infinite Improbability Drive. This helpfully replaces the missiles with a bowl of petunias and a very surprised sperm whale, who learns about the ground before he hits it. Later on, deep in the core of the planet, an unknown enemy attacks Trillian, Zaphod and Ford while Arthur meets Slartibartfast, an old man who designs planets for a living. Slartibartfast takes Arthur on a tour of the factory floor, showing off his latest project - Planet Earth, Mark Two.
Director: Alan J.W. Bell
Writer: Douglas Adams
6.0/102 votes#14 - Episode 6
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 2/9/1981
Fortune is on the crews' side - the transporter on the ship is still working, but needs someone to manually operate it. Marvin is therefore pressed into volunteering to sacrifice himself so the rest of the group can escape. Arthur and Ford get separated from Zaphod and Trillian and find themselves on board a space ship about to crashland into the prehistoric past of a planet that the two of them find strangely familiar. If this is indeed Earth, then history as they know it is about to be changed - and so is the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe and Everything....
Director: Alan J.W. Bell
Writer: Douglas Adams
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Douglas Adams Ratings Summary
"City of Death (1)" is the best rated episode written by Douglas Adams. It scored 8.4/10 based on 7 votes. It was directed by Michael Hayes. It aired on 9/29/1979 and is rated 0.2 points higher than their second-best episode, "City of Death (3)".