Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
WORKING
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Created by Max Landis; based on Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams. TV Series 2016-17, 18 episodes BBC America et al., production / BBC America and Netflix, distribution (see IMDb for details).[1] Samuel Barnett, Elijah Wood, Hannah Marks, Fiona Dourif, featured players.
SF/F philosophical comedy. First season episodes "Rogue Wall Enthusiasts" (1.3) and "Watkin" (1.4) introduce a machine or device, late Steampunk or Industrial in appearance, that can transfer souls between humans and other mammals, a device used by "the Men of the Machine." Inadvertently on the part of the inventor, the device functions as a time machine.[2] Note also early in the series visual and plot allusions to Nikola Tesla[3] and the issue of providing electrical power to communities, perhaps unlimited power. Note in these two episodes the motif of descent into a dangerous underground that's a mundane version of a mythic or legendary labyrinth, except with movie serial-style moving walls that can crush the lead characters — and a good deal of light and electricity. Readers of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan (1970/71) might legitimately see a witty comic variation on the Archmage Ged in the Atuan Undertomb, lighting it with a mage's magic staff — in Dirk and his semi-willing Assistant Todd Brotzman holding what's called an "Everbulb" and, explicitly, a "magic lightbulb," although "It probably [… uses electricity] in the human body to power itself."[4]
Later in the first season, note "a figure in clockwork armor," who turns out to be another time traveller.[5]
RDE, Initial Compiler, 16Jan18 f.