REVIEW: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

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Wing// TV

Christmas time is here and I finally have time to start blogging again. Sorry for the long hiatus, I’ve finally finished marking all assignments for my undergraduate classes.

For me, Christmas is about family, friends, and Jesus! 🙂 It is, however, also about catching up/ binging on shows that I’ve missed out throughout the year.

As a fan of BBC’s Sherlock series as well as the Sherlock Holmes movie franchise, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (herein “Dirk Gently”) caught my eye. Spanning 41 minutes per each episode, the 8-episode series makes for an easy weekend watch.

The show opens in a broody mood as Todd Brotzman (Elijah Wood) heads to work as a hotel bellhop. On the way to the bus, he is heckled and harassed by his alcoholic landlord for failing to pay rent. Within the next few hours, Todd finds himself entangled in a series of increasingly strange events, climaxing with the death of one Patrick Spring at the hotel penthouse as well as the disappearance of his daughter, Lydia Spring. He quickly becomes a person of interest by the police and is, unfortunately, let go from his job shortly after.
He heads back to his apartment to find a man breaking into his apartment through his living room window. Unapologetic, the intruder chippily introduces himself as Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett). Dirk explains that he is following the murder case of Patrick Spring and forcefully recruits Todd to be his assistant. He further explains himself to be a “holistic detective” who believes in the “fundamental connectedness of all things.” He firmly believes that the natural course of destiny  (“I am like a leaf in the stream of creation”) will bring him to the conclusion of the case.

Although Todd vehemently refuses, particularly as Dirk’s methods are beyond unconventional and mostly illegal, Todd finds himself subscribing to “destiny” whether he likes it or not. The plot also follows various other key characters, particularly one of “holistic assassin” Bart Curlish (Fiona Dourif) and her sidekick/ kidnappee/ criminal hacker Ken (Mpho Koaho), and the intertwining of all characters into the missing persons/murder mystery.

As someone who really cherishes how time is spent, I made sure to read reviews on the show to make sure it was going to be worth my while. (Yes, though sometimes reviews can spoil the plot, I’m not someone who cares so much for spoilers!)

The overall consensus among the online community is that Dirk Gently makes for an entertaining watch, but is lacking in depth. Rotten Tomatoes, a site by which Nguyen swears by, rated Dirk Gently a 72% on the Tomatometer. Another review on The Guardian writes,

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency manages to blend genre conventions and humor quite effectively, which is something we need more of in this very earnest age of The Walking Dead and Westworld. However, it ultimately fails at being anything other than goofy. That is another universal trait of that kid from your high school with the good weed: he always thought he was a lot deeper than he really was.

Of greater degree of critique, Variety Magazine’s chief TV critic writes:

All in all, “Dirk Gently” tries to be about half a dozen shows at once, and none of them rise to the level of adequate.

Despite these comments, I actually enjoyed the show to a significant degree. As mentioned by all reviewers, Dirk Gently is strangely funny. It lauds itself in being funny in the quirkiest way. It’s the sort of funny that happens when things happen in the most awkward of ways.

Samuel Barnett, who plays the titular character Dirk Gently, does a wonderful job of making the show as zany, fun, and mysterious as it sells itself to be. Elijah Wood’s superb acting adds much to foster the mysterious plot when his stuck-up, stubborn, and constantly frustrated character finally concedes to the fact that there is indeed, “a fundamental connectedness of all things.”

To me, this show really captured the spirit of Douglas Adam’s work. The producers of Dirk Gently were able to bring out the notion that nothing, yet everything could be explained through strange but ‘logical’ means without making the show a complete confusion. I felt that they did well at making something that did not make sense into something somewhat logical.

Although some critics have mentioned that the weakness of the show produced a largely linear plot, I felt that it played into the philosophy of what Dirk Gently really encapsulated. The show postulates that all things follow a natural logic towards a destiny. Although the path towards the end goal is convoluted (as they had portrayed excellently in the show), the line of destiny remains.

In his work, Adams sought to open up the minds of his readers to alternative ways of thinking. His cult following could be attributed to the fact that his work was profound in thought. Perhaps not profound in cinematics, but BBC’s newest adaptation of Dirk Gently helps viewers entertain and consider different epistemologies of reality and of the world. However, only those who really think about what the show is trying to convey can see this gem.

Watch the trailer here: