doctormo This live action production of Douglas Adams' book is an excellent example of taking source material and turning into a new thing. The show retained all of it's original harmony with the original themes and added to them in a very enjoyable way.If you look at the low scoring reviews, you'd be forgiven for thinking this would be a badly done production. But that's not the case. The reviewers are simply forgetting that all new works are derivative and if we were to be truly faithful we could just have an hour of teletext showing pages from the book instead.The story is holistically interconnected with the modern world (which Adams' loved) and the original stories. A perfect adaptation.

sophalla As far as it goes, the pilot episode really only seemed to have skimmed over elements of the books. It felt as if they picked things out, like time machines, the names, a mystery about cats, and Dirk's refrigerator argument.The major problem for this series is that it shouldn't relate to Dirk Gently at all. Though Adams was a big proponent of his work (book, TV, radio) never being the same, there were always elements connected them. Even if characters were portrayed differently by looks alone, they always had something connecting them back to the original incarnation.Dirk Gently doesn't do that, with exception to the title character. Gordon Way (though minor in appearance) is no longer the owner of successful WayForward, and he isn't the brother of Susan Way (who ceased to exist). He's a heartbroken rich man with a time machine who is trying to get back to Susan but ultimately fails. Nothing about the original Gordon remains except his name, status of wealth, and that he works with computers (except he was described in TV as "obsessed with," and that ultimately was MacDuff's personality in the book).Richard MacDuff is a polar opposite to himself. In the book, he's forgetful and slightly absentminded, haphazard, and more cautious toward Dirk. He's employed by Gordon. When he phones Susan, he makes apologies to and plans with her answering machine. Later, he breaks in and steals the tape. Not so for the show! MacDuff comes off as impulsively rude and a bit stupid. The best example for that is the very beginning. He's caught by Dirk burgling his own home to steal his girlfriend's laptop because he wants to break into her email to delete a scathing break-up message. Also, he's unemployed.Susan takes on an entirely new character and nothing except her first name and relationship to MacDuff is recognisable. Literally everything is different, including her last name and occupation.That is the main problem. There is nothing recognisable, nothing left of Adams' characters. For that, I give it an exceptionally low score.HOWEVER, had they renamed everyone and made it truly "inspired by" the book by taking the concept rather than butchering the characters completely, it would have been a wonderful stand alone. Another idea would be that they should have left out the stories entirely of everyone who wasn't Dirk and made an entirely new idea. There were so many avenues they could've taken, and they took the one that was easiest rather than exceptional.

Twone I really did want to enjoy this but it failed badly for me. I had just read the original Dirk Gently book on which this is based. The plot itself bares not much resemblance to the book but it does just enough to make you remember the original book. Gone are the electronic monk and Professor Chronotis along with the ghost of Gordon Way and the fact that Richard McDuff was employed by Gordon along with Susan being his sister and not his ex-love as she was in this version. In their defence the makers of this television version were always going to struggle to fit the plot of the book into a one hour show.It reminded me of the new BBC version of Sherlock written by Stephen Moffat & Mark Gatiss. Sadly, this version of Dirk Gently can not hold a torch to the fore mentioned programme. In the lead, Stephen Mangan felt like he was over doing the eccentricity of Adams's creation and Darren Boyd as McDuff didn't bring anything to his character.And can you believe that an iPhone would be able to hold its charge for sixteen years? I think not.If the BBC decided to commission this pilot for a series then I hope that they only use the characters and no more Adams's plots or stories as it will only draw comparison to the originals.I, for one, won't bother with the series if by some clerical error it ever sees the light of day.

a_prill This thing was made by people who never read the Dirk Gently books, but were told the plot by someone who only vaguely remembers it, and then decided that they didn't like it much and could do better anyway.The actors look and behave nothing like they are described by Douglas Adams, some of the best parts are cut out, and there's no trace of the general eerie - quirky feeling that is so great in the books.I admit that I didn't manage to watch more than fifteen minutes of the thing, it was depressing to me, since I'd been waiting and hoping to see my favorite Douglas Adams books dramatized for ages. But the little i did manage to endure was an insult to Adams' memory and talent. I wish they could've resisted the temptation to ruin Dirk Gently for everyone.