Peter Jones Obituary by Michael Lee

I had never seen a picture of Peter Jones until I saw his obituary on the BBC web site, but his voice is always in my mind as the voice of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, in both the radio and TV versions. When his voice later appeared in a narration of BBC2's Doctor Who night, it instantly brought back memories of that series, even though it was clear that his voice was twenty years older.

I think more than anything else, it was the voice of Peter Jones that made The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy the classic miniseries that it was, the dry voice telling the stories, explaining the plot, setting up all of the best jokes. In all of science fiction, I would argue that only HAL from 2001 is as important of a character based on only a voice.

As a British comedian, I don't know much else of what Peter Jones has done. But for Hitch-Hiker's Guide, I'll always remember not to panic.

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Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Michael Lee stepped into the MISFITS Website and vanished .... He woke to find himself trapped on the Internet, facing pages that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change the MISFITS Website for the better. His only guide on this journey is Professor Maxwell Misfittle, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Mike can see and hear. And so Mr. Lee finds himself leaping from site to site, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. Michael has previously reviewed High Fidelity.