Dirk Gently, the star of two books by Douglas Adams, is coming to TV, and the first footage has hit the net.
BBC Four will be host to the show, which is based on two novels by the incredible writer of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Dirk appeared in two and a half novels by Adams- Dirk Gently’s
Holistic Detective Agency, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and The Salmon of Doubt, which was sadly left unfinished at the time of his death (although it was later collected with a group of essays and published under the same title.)
Anti-hero Dirk Gently operates his eponymous detective agency based on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Perpetually broke, hopelessly chaotic and utterly infuriating, most people suspect Dirk is nothing more than a cheap conman. And they might be right—but nevertheless his methods, though unusual, do often produce surprising results.
Writer Howard Overman told SFX earlier
this year that it isn’t going to be a straight adaptation. “We’re not saying it’s an adaptation. We’re… saying it’s inspired by Douglas’s work. The story is totally different to that in the books because they’re not really adaptable as an hour-long, returning TV format.”
Here’s the first look:
But what do you think? Could this be the first genuinely good Adams adaptation?