Douglas Adams’ OTHER books are getting the BBCAmerica treatment. But is that a good thing?

We’ve seen a lot of reveals from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con and like most of geekdom I:

 

• Gleefully watched the Luke Cage, Iron Fist, & Defenders trailers
• Got excited about the DC Extended Universe again after seeing the trailers for Wonder Woman & Justice League
• Realized that I might be more excited for the Lego Batman movie than a person my age should be allowed
• Became hesitant about seeing The Killing Joke after a bunch of bad reviews
• Saw all of Marveldom onstage to celebrate Phase 3 (the Hulk armor looks FIERCE)

But one thing really grabbed me, something that, if YouTube views are any indication, most people didn’t hear about or know enough to care about, and that is the premiere of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency on BBC America this fall. I have been looking forward to this since I first heard about it, because as much as I love Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I am probably a bigger fan of Dirk Gently if for no other reason than Douglas Adams never had the chance to milk it past its worth (there is a reason Adams himself called Mostly Harmless “the 5th book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy”. Adams only wrote two complete Dirk Gently novels before he died (he was working on a 3rd, titled The Salmon of Doubt (the first ten chapters were released after his death, but since Adams himself said he was planning on scrapping most of what he wrote to that point I have avoided it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjDgM_PRcwc

So now that I’ve watched it, what are my thoughts?

Meh.

The trailer doesn’t really give anyone who is unfamiliar with the characters much of anything to go on, which is disappointing. My bigger problem, however, is that Dirk Gently looks nothing like he is described in the books. I understand that things have to be modified when they are adapted, but look at that trailer. Does the person playing Gently look at all like “a pudgy man who normally wears a heavy old light brown suit, red checked shirt with a green striped tie, long leather coat, red hat and thick metal-rimmed spectacles”?

My issue here is that if they are willing to stray that far away from the text for the character how far from the text will they go with the stories? Honestly, I am no longer looking forward to this show nearly as much as I was before I saw this. I hope I’m wrong, and I will still watch at least the first episode, but my giddiness is gone and until I find Odin in an old-folks home I’m not going to re-giddify anytime soon.