So in the wake of some truly terrible things going on in both the world and the country I live in, I am going to talk about some things that bring me joy.
Tonight I am going to talk about Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and why I love it so much. I’ve always loved Douglas Adams a lot ever since I picked up the Hitchhiker’s five book trilogy. However, it’s hard to translate that brilliance and that weirdness to screen.
That's the show!!! #DirkGentlyBBCA pic.twitter.com/ht1DVeritG
— BBC America (@BBCAMERICA) December 3, 2017
This TV show is exactly what I would expect from Douglas Adams and it’s glorious. It’s absolutely glorious. The cast is amazing and diverse. It’s inclusive and it will make you feel the most wonderful joy and the fiercest anger (look I still have feelings about the cliffhanger ending of the first season that involved me Twitter yelling at the writer/producers who promptly liked all of those angry tweets and tweeted back appropriate gifs). The most badass people are women. One of them, the queen of kickassery is a woman of color, played by the unstoppable Jade Eshete. In season two, we get disabled characters who become superheroes in their own right WITHOUT magically curing them of their disabilities. I literally could not tell you another show that did something like that. I cannot even put into words how much that meant to me.
It captures the wonder and mystery and sheer undiluted or disguised glee that I can only compare to the feelings I had when I first discovered fandom online in the beginnings of the Harry Potter heyday. Before the wank started or the shipping wars got serious, there was just this sheer awesome feedback loop of so many excited nerds all nerding out about the same thing. All of that collected joy and excitement overflowing everywhere as the fandom kept growing.
That’s Dirk Gently. That’s the show in a nutshell. That’s the collected fandom in a nutshell. We’re all wonderful hilarious nerds gathered together (because everything is connected) to love on this show. The showrunners, cast, crew also know that and are more than willing to engage with the fans in increasingly fun and hilarious ways.
