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Author Topic: Dirk Gently  (Read 1350 times)

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Thad

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Dirk Gently
« on: December 22, 2010, 07:18:53 PM »

The Dirk Gently pilot was pretty great!  It did a lovely job taking a few of the major strands of the first book and resolving them in the span of an hour, for a self-contained story in case there's no series.  For starters, all the Doctor Who stuff is gone; no Professor Chronotis and no alien trying to prevent the destruction of his spacecraft.  As such, Gordon Way's story goes a different direction (no Electric Monk either, [spoiler]though he gets a namedrop[/spoiler]); it's familiar and surprising all at once, which is a neat trick.

I liked the Hitchhiker's Guide movie, but I understand its flaws, too -- it seemed to want to keep the entire plot of the first book while adding new (and often not-very-good) scenes besides, and that came at the expense of, well, lots and lots of punchlines.  The Dirk script is much smarter in determining what to keep and what to cut (though, again, the fact that a good chunk of the book was reused material from Doctor Who helped make that decision easier), and the result is a much tighter story that's still recognizable as Dirk Gently -- especially because a lot of the best dialogue is intact.

Stephen Mangan carries the show as Dirk; he nails the eccentricity and the roguishness and manages to walk the fine line where you can see he's taking advantage of his clients but he still does what's right in the end.  When Susan accuses him of being a con man who exploits little old ladies, you want to defend him -- because damn it, he may have asked for a new refrigerator as an expense, but he DID find that cat and in fact finding the cat has been his primary motivation through the whole episode, no matter what other, seemingly more important things he's discovered along the way.

The rest of the cast is serviceable but not as memorable.  Darren Boyd's Richard McDuff is frankly kind of a dick but probably more interesting than the version in the book.  Susan's mostly there to play the role of skeptic, the little old lady puts in a good turn as another eccentric character, and Gordon Way's barely onscreen at all; the rest are just bit parts.  Since the basic plot arc of the book is handled in this pilot, I'm curious as to whether we'll see Richard and Susan again or not; they have potential but I can't say I'll miss them if they don't come back.

All in all, highly recommended viewing, and I hope there's more where that came from.

Also, I want to go back and freeze-frame Dirk's big board, because it's got Easter eggs all over it.
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Norondor

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2010, 09:09:12 PM »

Dirk Gently pilot

 :pop: Wha-wha-wha-whaaaaaaaat??
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Brentai

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2010, 05:10:48 AM »

I think the best decision was not making Dirk a huge Slavic man.
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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2010, 08:12:23 AM »

Yeah, I kept waiting for Richard to call him Svlad, but he never did.
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Misha

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2011, 06:18:54 PM »

I am so happy about dirk gently
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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2011, 11:33:02 PM »

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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2012, 07:19:59 AM »

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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2012, 12:03:19 PM »

Wasn't as good as the first one, but it worked nicely, more than anything on the strength of the dialogue.  It also did a pretty good job with the "bunch of seemingly random shit that all comes together in ways that aren't what you initially expect" setup (indeed, didn't you expect [spoiler]the creepily-accurate horoscope software to be related in some way to Reason[/spoiler]?  Nope!  Rather a good red herring.) -- and indeed it carries over to even the basic elements of the show, where they take bits and pieces from the books and rearrange them in completely different ways (the paranoid man who Dirk ignores only to show up late and find him dead, unconventional statistical analysis software, horoscopes, a rhino, rationalization...).

The most Adams-y bit was the Reason software, a computer program designed to, instead of helping people make decisions, help them come up with flawless, inarguable rationalizations for decisions they have already made.  It's got a whiff of the hypnosis sequence in the first Dirk book (which is one of my favorite bits in anything ever), and it's actually a fairly accurate description of AI planning.  (This briefly made me think that the show's writers have a fairly sophisticated understanding of computer science, up until the scene where Dirk smashes a server with a sledgehammer and in the next room a client machine's monitor starts making "kzzt" noises as the picture starts to roll.  Which of course returned me to my default assumption that nobody involved in television has even the vaguest understanding of how computers work, at all.)  I was a bit disappointed that the show seems to have dropped Richard's background as a programmer; it would have been nice to have HIM explaining something to DIRK for a change.

I've seen people describe the show as a sort of poor man's Sherlock, and they're not wrong; even the music sounds similar.  But Overman's got a good feel for the characters and premise, and has done a good job balancing the absurdity with the rationalism -- just as Adams would have wanted.

And speaking of Adams, I watched the episode while working out on exercise equipment.  In hindsight, I may have been tempting fate.  (Incidentally, this Sunday would have been his 60th birthday.  Apparently there will be a party.)

Also:

Yeah, I kept waiting for Richard to call him Svlad, but he never did.

There is a brief "Svlad Cjelli" namedrop in this episode.  In fact I think I heard someone address him as "Mr. Cjelli" later in the episode.
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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2012, 12:30:33 PM »

My favorite thing about this week's episode is how it sends up the very IDEA of a fair mystery.

I mean, it TECHNICALLY qualifies as a fair mystery in that it gives you all the clues you need to know to solve the mystery...but that actually getting from those clues to the resolution requires a COMPLETELY BONKERS leap of logic.
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Syl

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2012, 10:08:16 PM »

It's been years since I read the novels, but i don't remember dirk being such a dick.  Probably because I read them more for douglas adams writing than I did for anything involving characters or story.

I also liked The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul better than the first Dirk book, partly because of the rain god and mostly because of Thor's antics. 
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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2012, 10:26:43 AM »

He WAS a ripoff artist in the books, but yeah, I don't recall him ever [spoiler]calling a place someone was interviewing and say she had a long history of sexually harassing people[/spoiler].

Ep 2 was pretty much necessary to show him displaying compassion for another person so he wouldn't come across as such a prick.  (Similarly to the episode of Sherlock where he beats the hell out of the guy who messes with Miss Hudson.)  Course, then it ends with that spoiler'd bit.
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Syl

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2012, 04:53:17 PM »

I did quite enjoy episode 2.  It was much better than episode 1 and had some intriguing situations.  (Though I loved the [spoiler]time travel[/spoiler] part of episode 0. 

I'm curious how episode 3 will be, if this came out anytime when sherlock wasn't as recent i'm sure it would resonate a bit stronger.
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Syl

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2012, 07:39:10 AM »

Alright, episode 3 was awesome.  It felt a lot more human than the other episodes and did a good job of showing Dirk's actions as having real consequences.

Also the way the mystery was wrapped up was hilarious. 
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Thad

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Re: Dirk Gently
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2012, 08:07:38 AM »

Yeah, like I say, I love that all the clues are laid out, you just have to be completely insane to actually connect them.

What's the bit from tvtropes about how the difference between a Xanatos Gambit and Xanatos Roulette is whether you say "My god, that's brilliant" or "My god, that's insane"?  That's the difference between Sherlock and Dirk Gently.
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