“Although Hitchhiker’s does not have any real political significance, there is a theme there of the ubiquity of bureaucracy and paranoia rampant throughout the universe. And that is a direct debt to Python, along with the comparative style of ‘individual events, little worlds’. The difference comes with the narrative structure, so the world of Hitchhiker’s is based outside the ‘Real World’ while still co-existing with it. It’s like looking at events through the wrong end of a telescope.”
