MnemonicDevice

I'm giving this show three stars because it has a great premise, a decent cast, and good production values. The problem is that the writing is so bad that all of that potential is completely squandered. After getting off to a solid start in the first couple episodes, this series quickly pulls a Vasa and founders before really even sailing out of the harbor. This is the kind of show where the writers feel the need to have the main character explicitly describe the obvious thematic parallels between her dysfunctional marriage and her father's relationship to his Real Doll because, I guess, they don't think their audience can figure it out on their own. It seems to desperately want to be a biting satire, but it has no teeth, no wit, no understanding of technology or even, it seems, of human beings. There's a certain extent to which it also seems to want to be about the characters, but despite the best efforts of some of the performers, these people barely exist in the two dimensional plane. Seemingly significant characters hang around for a couple episodes then vanish with no consequence to the overall story, or they show up late in the season and do virtually nothing. By contrast, an inordinate amount of time is spent on scenes between the psychopathic husband and his assistant without any character development for either. It seems pointless. If the writers just want them to be the archetypes of the villain and toady, they should just go for that and spare their audience the tedium of their endless unnecessary scenes together. To a certain extent, those three stars I'm giving this are actually more damning than zero stars because, honestly, there is so much potential here that it seems like it would be nearly impossible to screw it up, yet somehow these writers succeeded.

The best thing about this series is the casting. Stephen Mangan makes for a nearly pitch perfect Dirk Gently and Darren Boyd is a suitably bland (not in a bad way) and dry-witted Richard MacDuff.

The worst thing, unfortunately, is the writing. There are many references to-and direct lifts from-the novels (especially the first one), but they are often handled in an inartful manner and are frequently devoid of the full context that made them funny and/or poignant. More significantly, this show made the bizarre decision to excise most of the characteristic pulpy weirdness of the novels. Mostly gone are the ghosts, aliens, alien robots, ancient gods, et al. Of the books. There are only really two notable sci-fi nods in this series and both are fairly unsatisfying, instead this show seems to have strangely made the decision to position itself as simply a less deductive version of Sherlock.

Comedies generally age worse than other movies, and this movie, unfortunately, is no exception. Maybe if I had seen it in the 60s I would have thought it was hilarious, but I saw it 2021 and it didn't find it funny at all. I understood when things were happening that were supposed to be funny but they didn't make me laugh at all. It made watching this movie almost painful, like watching a comedian bomb on stage in front you. That said, it's a Kubrick film so it's pretty well put together. There is some starkly beautiful cinematography throughout, nicely done opening credits, a stunning set for the war room, and some interesting handheld camera work that seemed very far ahead of it's time to me. Most of the actors seemed like they were putting in a lot of work. I can't say anyone's performance really resonated with me, but I can respect the effort. So I give it five stars for craft, but nothing more than that because it's truly a tedious viewing experience.