Synchronized chaos (and corgis).
A missing girl. A broke bellhop. A psychotic landlord. A wandering dog. The world of Dirk Gently is one of inapparent interconnectedness, where everything means something - even nothing.
Max Landis' new adaptation of the books from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy creator Douglas Adams (which already got a page-to-screen treatment in the UK a few years back, starring Stephen Mangan) lands on BBC America this Saturday, October 22nd, with an original story and not one actually based on either of the two novels. Instead of trying to transfer/adapt/reconfigure one of those stories, Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra) opted instead to create a new world, and characters, for the series, with rumors of perhaps some of it borrowing from Adams' unfinished third Dirk book.
Penny Dreadful's Samuel Barnett plays Gently this time around, colorfully clothed and brash like a modern-era Rik Mayall, bouncing into the life of Elijah Woods' downtrodden Todd during an immensely strange day in Todd's poor life. Considered to be a suspect in a bizarre murder at the hotel he works at, Todd more enters Dirk's realm of synchronized chaos than, say, the other way around - even though it's Dirk who breaks into Todd's place through the window and forces himself into his life as part of his "holistic" investigation tactics. Dirk's approach, as portrayed here, is less of a routine and more of Dirk just giving in to the whims of the universe and believing that everything will eventually circle back to answers.
Soon, we're watching the police, the FBI, the CIA, a rock star who appears to be a doppelgänger of Todd, a crazed "holistic" assassin (Fiona Dourif), a rowdy threesome of thugs (with a fourth member), and a few people accidentally being killed by madcap ricocheting bullets. It's hard to really describe the exact tone of the Douglas Adams books, but needless to say it's a very tricky one to successfully adapt and, in fact, the jury's still out on whether it can be done. This first episode, "Horizons," goes for the tone, over the more traditional "faithful" adaptation route, and stumbles. But just a bit.
It's a lot to take in. We are bombarded with random events and only a few of them happenstance their way into anything resembling Gently's theory of connectivity. If this were a movie, things would have gotten wrapped up and explained -- well, mostly -- by the end. But since it's an ongoing series, things play out like an insane, and somewhat exhausting, carnival ride. If you're looking for this pilot episode to end with an "Ah ha!" moment of clarity, in which the insanity starts making a bit more sense, you'll be disappointed.
The crux of "Horizons" however isn't to stabilize the chaos by the end, or to answer any questions really. It's to bring Dirk and Todd closer together as a duo. Todd needs to be convinced that, with his life in ruin, the best path for him right now is to pal around with Dirk and succumb to the lunacy of it all, trusting that the cosmos will steer him true. And we do see that click for him right at the end.
Still, the manic energy of this series alone often feels like too much to absorb, though Douglas Adams isn't exactly for everyone either, even if this is more of a virtual sandbox populated with his characters and not a straight story transfer.
The Verdict
The first episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency goes for tone and formidable chaos over story, crash-dummying us into the world of the show with little regard for audience exhaustion. There's an admirable quality to that, and the performances are all fun and fitting, but there's little at work here to tether us emotionally.
Editors' Choice
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