Whitechapel - BBC Dirk Gently Show Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:12:48 -0700 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.4 & Feed Publisher BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273620#Comment_273620 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273620#Comment_273620 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:02:11 -0800 Casey Moore Trailer is out and figured I would share. ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273644#Comment_273644 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273644#Comment_273644 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:55:01 -0800 screaming meat BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273656#Comment_273656 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273656#Comment_273656 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:39:07 -0800 icelandbob BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273666#Comment_273666 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273666#Comment_273666 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:01:28 -0800 nigredo BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273671#Comment_273671 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=273671#Comment_273671 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:47:41 -0800 Casey Moore BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=274963#Comment_274963 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=274963#Comment_274963 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:33:26 -0800 Flabyo BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275013#Comment_275013 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275013#Comment_275013 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:18:20 -0800 Flabyo
It's not the same plot as the book, with only an hour it was never going to be.

But it *felt* right, and it was fun. It actually felt more like a pilot episode for a series, and if that's the plan then that would be a most awesome thing indeed.

Spoilers...

Clever that they adapted it in such a way that nearly all of the elements that Adams re-used from his unfilmed Doctor Who episode in the book were not used at all in this adaptation. There's a nice nod to it though, with the things that are on Dirk's whiteboard before he clears it being those plot elements that they dropped.

I know a lot of people were a bit wary of the casting, especially for Dirk, but I think it worked pretty well. Not far off how I'd always pictured Dirk to be to be honest, slightly manic but with a lot going on under the surface. Some nice 'bringing it up to date' touches in the dialog as well.

Quite liked the soundtrack as well, apart from the East 17 anyway... heh.


Interested in what other people thought though. I suspect purists will probably hate it, but given that there's never been any adaptation of anything Adams without it having substantial changes (and that includes things he adapted himself, such as taking the Hitchhikers radio series to books and back again), I don't think being a Douglas Adams purist is something you can actually be... ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275042#Comment_275042 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275042#Comment_275042 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:44:48 -0800 Cat Vincent BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275049#Comment_275049 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275049#Comment_275049 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 19:39:22 -0800 justinpickard BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275068#Comment_275068 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275068#Comment_275068 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:41:04 -0800 frequentcontributor BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275094#Comment_275094 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275094#Comment_275094 Fri, 17 Dec 2010 04:43:44 -0800 curb BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275112#Comment_275112 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275112#Comment_275112 Fri, 17 Dec 2010 06:16:29 -0800 city creed
but pretty much everything about this felt grievously wrong for me.

It was butchery.
No sister, no sofa, no Wednesday Week, no Anthem, no Reg, no WayForward II
too many other gaping wounds on the story to count them all out but the disemboweling stroke was:
No monk.

A few incidental chalk diagrams and diegetic media mentions are palliative rather than curative. This narrative never stood a chance.


Maybe losing story bits is too obvious a moan but for me this came off more like a tribute to Dirk Gently than a real go at telling the book's story on the telly. Not that I utterly hated the tribute, but an ungutted adaptation is surely doable.

Stephen Mangan posted a defence of the show on thursday on a BBC blog
he says
In my opinion Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul are unfilmable as written.
which is a bit disingenuous. But he also says
all the stuff from the books that doesn't feature is still sitting there ready for us to use once the BBC commissions a 58-part series...
which doesn't exactly sound to me as though he's sanguine about the chances of that happening. ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275126#Comment_275126 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275126#Comment_275126 Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:23:06 -0800 Flabyo BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275192#Comment_275192 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275192#Comment_275192 Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:15:37 -0800 frequentcontributor BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275268#Comment_275268 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275268#Comment_275268 Sat, 18 Dec 2010 01:11:31 -0800 eDave BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275462#Comment_275462 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275462#Comment_275462 Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:39:13 -0800 radian BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275516#Comment_275516 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275516#Comment_275516 Mon, 20 Dec 2010 06:41:47 -0800 Jack_Crow BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275667#Comment_275667 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275667#Comment_275667 Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:00:46 -0800 Comicbookbunny
I"m afraid of it honestly loving the HELL out of the books. (i'm so gonna get yelled at for this comment:) I honestly liked the Dirk Gently books more than Hitchikers *runs for cover* I adore the starched humor in them and the obscenely round about way you get to the end of the book.

The audio books i have with Douglas Adams reading are one of my prized possessions. I wonder what he would have had to say about the TV series and who gets the nice check? ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275702#Comment_275702 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275702#Comment_275702 Wed, 22 Dec 2010 02:48:16 -0800 Flabyo
I agree with you on them being better than Hitchhikers though. I loved Hitch as a teen, but when I re-read them a few years later I found them too silly for my changed sense of humour. ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275735#Comment_275735 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=275735#Comment_275735 Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:32:01 -0800 256
But, to my very hazy recollection, there was actually something quite ... creepy about the books. Maybe it was the Electric Monk or the sort of temporal uncertainty involved, but that seemed to be missing from the TV edition. ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=282243#Comment_282243 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=282243#Comment_282243 Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:21:43 -0800 Turnabout
And after the appalling mess that was the Hitchhiker's movie, I have decided that I can't take the chance. No stomach-turning adaptation for me, thank you. I'm afraid that Alan Moore has the right idea. Some, if not most stories, are never meant to be expressed in another medium. ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=288861#Comment_288861 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=288861#Comment_288861 Fri, 01 Apr 2011 05:16:24 -0700 curb This will probably please some of you more than others ... ]]> BBC Dirk Gently Show http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=288879#Comment_288879 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=9281&Focus=288879#Comment_288879 Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:40:47 -0700 RobSpalding