GENTLY DOES IT
Based on a novel by Douglas Adams, wacky would be a euphemistic description of this series. By
Page 51 January 21, 2018
Birds of a feather allegedly flock together, but some flocks are mavericks. Instead of a group of like-minded geese, some flocks are a coalition of black swans, birds of paradise and the occasional ambitious chicken. This is the case in Netflix’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Based on the Douglas Adams novel, the series revolves around holistic detective Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett), his unwitting assistant Todd Brotzman (Elijah Wood) and their surreal adventures. If you are wondering what a holistic detective is, imagine a bumbling Sherlock Holmes-type character whose talent for detection stems more from the bizarre and chaotic nudging of the universe than actual deductive ability.
As is the case with all things birthed by the mind of Douglas Adams, wacky is a euphemism when it comes to Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The series’ first season kicks off with Brotzman, a down-onhis-luck bellhop scrambling to pay off a maniacal gun-toting landlord. His life goes from bad to worse when he stumbles across a gruesome crime scene at work that features bite marks on the ceiling and two halves of the same body scattered across the hotel room. Cue the entrance of Dirk Gently, a semi-supernatural detective hellbent on recruiting Brotzman as an assistant for a case he is trying to solve.
What follows is a plotline that involves electric rhinos, a weaponised cat harbouring the soul of a hammerhead shark and a mysterious body-swapping cult.
Along the way the duo link up with Farah Black (Jade Eshete) a bad-ass bodyguard with baggage, Amanda Brotzman (Hannah Marks), Todd’s sister who suffers from a neurological condition that gives her painful hallucinations, and a cast of
SERIES
characters that would populate the rowdiest asylum in the world.
The newly released second season kicks off in similarly kooky fashion with a giant scissor fight between a fuchsia-haired fairytale prince and a gaggle of goons straight from a child’s candy-fuelled imagination.
The case Dirk is assigned this time around is to “find the boy”, a mission vague enough to unravel over 10 episodes without seeming laboured.
In the second season character development plays a much bigger role than in the first. Gently, having finally made friends, grapples with the fear that his anarchy will cost his new friends their lives while the Brotzmans try to piece together the shattered remains of their relationship. All of this while trying to locate a mysterious boy somehow linked to the discovery of a parallel fairy-tale dimension whose problems are spilling over into the “real” world.
Despite the show’s ostensible absurdity, Dirk Gently plays out as a rather well thought-out series. The combination of good acting and better storytelling stops the show from devolving into a kind of LSDinduced fever dream while also managing to stay true to its light-hearted nature.
To classify it as a comedy, however, would be an oversimplification. As with a growing number of shows, Dirk Gently bristles at easy categorisation, instead borrowing from the science-fiction, fantasy, comedy, horror and whodunit genres. It is fun, not quite so much fun that you can watch it with your kids (there is violence), but definitely enough for you to spend your weekend becoming one with your couch.
Both seasons of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency are currently streaming on Netflix.
A cast of characters that would populate the rowdiest asylum
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