I’ve just watched the first series of Netflix’s Dirk Gently, and I enjoyed it a great deal.
But.
But I have many problems with it. Let’s start with the positives. Some good performances, nice script (way better than the Will smith movie Bright, that Max Landis also wrote), along with lots of wackiness and a good plot, which reflect the source material, along with a violence and darkness that doesn’t necessarily, but was well handled. I really loved Bart the Holistic Assassin, superbly portrayed by Fiona Dourif.
And, I confess, most of my problems are in other ways that the series diverges from the Douglas Adams books on which it is loosely based, so can be viewed as purist ire which I am not denying.
The first is actually fairly minor, in the annoyance level anyway. The character of Dirk Gently is played wonderfully by Samuel Bennett as an wide-eyed innocent, socially inept almost to the level of autism (although the innocence part is slightly punctured at the very end). This is so very at odds with the character as written I found it to be quite jarring - a problem I recognise someone not coming to the show via the books wouldn’t have. Adams’ books have Dirk as an amoral, conniving - if charming - huckster - saved by the fact that his madcap theories of Holistic Detection actually work out (mostly), but who is nonetheless entirely in it for the money and seems to take pleasure in conning people. I can see why here they went for the safer option, but it does take away from the depth somewhat.Some of this amorallity was transferred to the sidekick - but, even then, only as something in his past which became a rather sick-making and obvious moment of character growth, completely with strings in the background music.
Another divergence is to make Gently’s powers, well, almost like a superpower while In the books (I am sorry, I know I shouldn’t compare different media) it is a talent he has that he can more-or-less stumble onto the right thing. I know that sounds like a minor change, but the way this is presented in this TV show makes it much grander, and also emphasis a kind of intractable fate while Adams, an arch-skeptic, makes it quite clear that it is NOT fate, merely chance, that ties everything together. Dirk just ‘has the knack’ of being in the position where these chances combine. Added to this, the ‘secret government organisation’ to which Gently is connected was so very out of place as to be pointless.
There was an adaptation a few years ago on the BBC, with the Stephen Mangan playing Dirk Gently as brilliantly as he does everything, which was utterly pitch-perfect. As well as being underfunded and hidden away on BBC2 at some ungodly hour so hardly anyone was aware of it, never mind watched it, comparing the two shows the potential strengths and weaknesses of the sort UK and longer US series formats. In the UK everything has to be tight and to the point and serving story and character, but the viewer barely has time to get into it (especially when it is cancelled so soon), while the longer series allows development and exploration of the world and the characters, but can lead to unnecessary padding and extraneous levels of plot that can sometimes take away the focus.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the series and will be watching season 2 - possible in just a couple of sittings - but I reserve the right to hold an original book and BBC adaptation purist grudge.
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