The 2nd content we are suggesting under the “Hidden Gems” series is another Netflix streaming web series called ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’. According to most film and television series databases, this content is categorized as a comic science fiction detective series, which at the heart of the project it is. But it is much more than that, with the series creator Max Landis, creating a mind bending plot, starting from the first five minutes and carrying it all the way to the end of the series.
The 18 episode web series was created from the humorous detective novel of the same name, written by English writer Douglas Adams. The book was supposed to be an extended universe for his hit television series ‘Doctor Who’, supposedly in an alternate timeline/dimension. Max Landis, the creator and scriptwriter of the show decided to take out the ‘Doctor Who’ elements and created a seperate two-season series about the “holistic detective”.
The eight-episode first season premiered on BBC America on October 22nd 2016. All episodes were made available on Netflix, the very next month. The series got renewed for a second season (containing 10 episodes) which they released on 14th October 2017. Due to low viewership, the series got cancelled immediately after, against much fan outcry.
Before we get into the synopsis of the series, one must understand a keyword, even before watching this brilliant series – “holistic”. Holistic (according to google) is a belief – that parts of something are intimately interconnected and explicitly only by reference of the whole. If no one understands this, we wouldn’t be surprised. For everyone else out there, the series is set in a universe where anything and everything that occurs, happens for a reason. Everyone and everything is interconnected and because of that there are obscure interconnected things happening which no one knows about.
And it is these types of “happenings” that Dirk Gently (portrayed by Samuel Barnett), the “holistic detective” takes up as his cases. He looks for the interconnectedness of things while trying to solve his case and he ropes in Todd Brotzman (portrayed by Elijah Wood) and Farah Black (portrayed by Jade Eshete) during one of them. Dirk has a mysterious past which connects him to “Project Blackwing”, a mysterious CIA project that evaluates subjects with strange abilities. Dirk has to solve his case while having to avoid Blackwing agents who are trying to recapture him and Bart (portrayed by Fiona Dourif), a “holistic assassin”.
The mind bending detective series ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ is currently streaming on Netflix.