Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

02 Apr Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

COVID-19 has certainly brought more television into my life. Some of it good, some of it not so good. A friend suggested Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency to me on the weekend ‘if I liked something a bit quirky.’ I bought the first episode of Series 1 on iTunes to get a sense of whether I liked it or not and might buy the whole series. The fact that the original books were written by Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame augured well I thought. They are some of my favourite, most entertaining and funny books of all time.

And so I pressed play on Dirk Gently. And while it definitely could be described as ‘quirky’ I suppose, I would go further and say that it is comprised of relentless scenes of mindless violence and terror. By the end of watching one episode, I felt so stressed out by scenes of bloodthirsty mayhem, that it was hard to sleep. And nightmares ensued.

I have never understood how this kind of gruesome violence could be considered entertainment. Do people like the elevated stress levels and fear response of seeing people being violently murdered? Or do they have their own sense of bloodlust and love to see blood, guts, and gore? I just do not get it. It doesn’t seem like a pleasant kind of way to spend time at all.

And while Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency has a lot of redeeming features – a very interesting storyline, great characters, and some very quirky imagery, I am simply not prepared to elevate my stress levels like that every night, watching people being brutally murdered. It is just awful.

I wish they had a PG or even an M version. I can’t see how the series could be anything less than R rated. And it should be advertised as such. It is hardly a comedy. It is just stressful, gruesome, brutal, bloodthirsty violence for the most part.

I know that I haven’t been desensitised, because I don’t watch violent television. I have no plans to become desensitised either. It seems completely antisocial and sociopathic.

Here is an interesting radio program on 2ser comparing the book to the movie adaptation. https://2ser.com/dirk-gentlys-holistic-detective-agency-better-than-the-book/ they didn’t mention the gratuitous violence. Maybe it is just me.

It is really annoying. I really want to see the story unfold. Maybe I will read the books instead!