The Holistic Detective Comes To The Big Screen

[Zaune]

Dirk Gently, based (rather loosely by the look of things) on the books by Douglas Adams, airs this Thursday on BBC4.
Personally, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the clip in the above link is really quite at odds with the Dirk of the books, at least by my rather imperfect recollections of reading them once several years ago; he can also be heard claiming there's no such thing as coincidence in the trailer that's running on the BBC, which directly contradicts a quite important part of his backstory in the original. Can't say I'm ecstatic about the lead role being taken by a bloke who once played Adrian Mole either.

On the other hand, I wasn't overly fond of the original books anyway, so I'll give it a chance.

[Sinewmire]

Having viewed that video, I'm going to have to switch myself from "cautiously optimistic" to "jaded, slight hope to be surprised". By an ASTONISHING holistic coincidence, I read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency last weekend, before I heard about this being put forward... I seem to recall Dirk as being very serious and pompous, and always trying to keep his dignity in ridiculous situations as opposed to the scenery-chewing I saw in that preview. Still, I'll wait until I've seen the first episode before I lay into it like the rabid fatty nerd I am.

"Sherlock Holmes said that once you eliminate the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I, however, do not like to rule out the impossible."

[Zaune]

Well, I stuck it out for thirty minutes. The series appears to be 'based on' the original book in the sense that they've appropriated a bunch of the funnier set-pieces and stuffed them into an 'original' storyline that might have been recycled from someone's third-rate Jonathan Creek fanfiction. I'm not even going to speculate why a character who was The Watson's girlfriend's brother in the first book is being set up to appear to be her stalker, why The Watson himself is now an unemployed slacker, or why they felt the need for a huge explosion in the pre-credits sequence.

And just to set the bloody tin lid on it, they put in a jokey reference to the original plot of the story as a sight gag in a scene where Dirk reads a newspaper. Brilliant touch there, guys. I'm sure Douglas Adams would have really appreciated that.

[Swindle1984]

Next we'll find out that Thor is just an accountant and doesn't transform airline ticker counter girls into vending machines.