TV Review: Dirk Gently Series 1.1

rating: 4

Douglas Adam's created The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, one of most beloved sci-fi series of books ever created. A TV series was made back in the 80's and a big budget movie (which missed the mark) finally saw the light of day in 2006. The TV series aside, no adaptation of Adam's work has been greeted with praise from the fan boys. You see, the fans of his work are very protective of the late author's creations and finding the 'Adams' tone is often a near impossible task. One of Adams' other creations, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is certainly less mainstream and, like much of his work, has been deemed un-filmable. Harry Enfield voiced Dirk in a couple of fantastic BBC radio adventures, but a TV or film adaptation seemed unlikely. Sadly only two books were published, Douglas Adams died before he could complete the third book. The BBC produced the Hitchhikers series (and the radio shows) and thankfully in 2010 Dirk Gently Holistic Detective Agency got a one of TV movie starring Stephen Mangan , Darren Boyd and Helen Baxendale. The project was a gamble, but everybody involved in the making of it was a huge fan of the source material. The critical response and ratings was solid enough to get a series of 3 adventures commissioned, which began on Monday night. The self styled holistic private detective, Dirk, believes in the interconnectedness of all things, although both Dirk and his assistant/business partner Macduff spend most of their time looking for lost cats for little old ladies. This opening episode see's Dirk on four seemingly unrelated cases, there's the secret admirer he has who is sending him toy pigs and abusive cards, the recent murder of a man who believed the pentagon were watching him, a woman who believes her husband is having an affair and after an encounter with the husband Dirk gets himself hired to investigate why his latest client€™s horoscopes are all coming true. Let's get this out the way now; this isn€™t strictly speaking a faithful adaptation of the books or character. Considering I am a big fan of all of Douglas Adams' work I thought this would bother me more, but it doesn't. Darren Boyd as Macduff is a great piece of casting, in some ways the mismatched pair remind me of Sherlock and Dr Watson from Steven Moffat/Mark Gatiss, only played for more laughs and with noticeably much less money. I was thrilled when this got picked up for a series, granted 3 episodes isn't much (works for Sherlock) but I had hoped it would have moved to BBC 2. There's nothing wrong with BBC 4, and my only problem with this solid and funny opening episode, was the clearly very low production budget. Not that shoving buckets of money at a project means it will be good, These little things don€™t prevent the episode being good, enjoyable and it's about as quintessentially Adams as a modern TV adaptation is ever likely to get. Howard Overman (Misfits) has done a good job in adapting the novels, the dialogue is sharp and Boyd and Magan make for a great double act. Having previously shared limited screen time in Green Wing, it's good to see them spark off each other. This isn€™t going to be a huge hit but it's very well written, the cast are all excellent and the tone is just right. Dirk Gently might not be a faithful adaptation but it's a huge amount of fun. Helen Baxendale returns in next weeks episode on BBC Four at 9pm