Dirk Gently (TV series)
A holistic detective series based on Douglas Adams' novels.
Dirk Gently is a British comic sci-fi detective show adapted from Douglas Adams' novel, created by Howard Overman. Stephen Mangan plays the holistic detective, with Darren Boyd as his assistant Richard MacDuff. The series blends humour with time travel and artificial intelligence, following Dirk's belief in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Comic science fiction; Detective fiction
- Creator
- Howard Overman
- Based on
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency; by Douglas Adams
- Writer
- Howard Overman
- Matt Jones
- Jamie Mathieson
- Director
- Damon Thomas; Tom Shankland
- Starring
- Stephen Mangan; Darren Boyd
- Composer
- Daniel Pemberton
- Country
- United Kingdom
Facts from the source article.
Production
The first Dirk Gently novel began life as an abandoned Doctor Who story. In 1979, location filming for the serial Shada, starring Tom Baker, was completed in Cambridge, but a dispute among BBC studio technicians halted production, and the episode was never broadcast. Douglas Adams later recycled ideas from that script and his other Doctor Who work into the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, released in 1987. A sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, followed in 1988, and Adams was writing a third, The Salmon of Doubt, when he died in 2001. While each book introduces new characters, Dirk (whose real name is Svlad Cjelli), his former secretary Janice Pearce, and Sergeant (later Inspector) Gilks appear in all three. The first novel had already been adapted as a stage play and a BBC Radio 4 series in October 2007, starring comedian Harry Enfield. At the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy convention Hitchcon, literary agent Ed Victor announced a television adaptation was underway. Stephen Mangan was cast as Dirk Gently, with Darren Boyd as MacDuff and Helen Baxendale as Susan. This marked the first TV adaptation of Adams's Dirk Gently series, though characters from the books had appeared in a 1992 episode of The South Bank Show. Filming on the pilot began in early October 2010 in Bristol, directed by Damon Thomas and produced by Chris Carey. Though commissioned by the BBC, it was produced by ITV Studios with The Welded Tandem Picture Company. The pilot first aired on BBC Four on 16 December 2010 and was repeated several times over the following month. On 31 March 2011, a three-part series of hour-long episodes was commissioned, broadcast on BBC Four in March 2012. It was the first continuing drama series ever commissioned by that channel.
Premise
Dirk Gently, whose real name is Svlad Cjelli, operates a Holistic Detective Agency based on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. He relies on random chance methods such as Zen navigation—following people or vehicles who look like they know where they are going—or throwing a dart at a board of words to select the direction of his detection. By following apparently random occurrences, he discovers connections between seemingly unrelated cases. He claims to follow quantum mechanics, though it is implied he does not truly understand them; most people suspect he is a conman, and he rarely gets paid, leaving him in permanent financial difficulty. In the pilot, Dirk bumps into former university friend Richard MacDuff, who has been made redundant from an electricity board job. Dirk hypnotises MacDuff and persuades him to invest his £20,000 redundancy money in the agency, making MacDuff his partner and assistant. MacDuff's girlfriend, Dr Susan Harmison, is deeply sceptical. Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce, unpaid for years, refuses to work.
Reception
The pilot episode gained 1.1 million viewers, a 3.9% share on BBC Four, over three times the channel's slot average. Critical reception was largely positive, though several reviewers noted it was only a loose adaptation of the novel, with a general consensus that the essence of the original was maintained. Sam Wollaston in The Guardian described it as a neat story about a missing cat and time travel, with a smattering of quantum physics and the fundamental connectedness of things, praising Doreen Mantle's performance as the old lady/murderer and Stephen Mangan's performance as slightly irritating but fitting. James Donaghy, also in The Guardian, expressed hope for a full series, noting promising glimpses, a strong cast, and Howard Overman's writing from Misfits. The Independent published two reviews: Alice-Azania Jarvis was extremely positive, praising the quirky camerawork and youthful soundtrack, and comparing the result to Wallace and Gromit, Doctor Who, and The Secret Seven. John Walsh's review was cooler, finding the adaptation moth-eaten and staggeringly old-fashioned despite modern setting, but praising Mangan's performance for its alarmed-spaniel eyes, jutting-jawed stroppiness, geography teacher elbow-patches, and Medusan hair, noting his ineptness as a sleuth provided fine comic moments.
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