Dirk Gently is a British comic science fiction detective television series based on characters from the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. The series was created by Howard Overman and stars Stephen Mangan as holistic detective Dirk Gently and Darren Boyd as his sidekick Richard MacDuff. Recurring actors include Helen Baxendale as MacDuff's girlfriend Susan Harmison, Jason Watkins as Dirk's nemesis DI Gilks and Lisa Jackson as Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce. Unlike most detective series Dirk Gently features broadly comic touches and even some science fiction themes such as time travel and artificial intelligence. Dirk Gently operates his Holistic Detective Agency based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things", which relies on random chance methods to uncover connections between seemingly-unrelated cases. He claims that he follows the principles of quantum mechanics. Although the majority of his clients suspect he may be a conman, he often produces surprising results. With the help of his assistant/partner, Richard MacDuff, Dirk investigates a number of seemingly unrelated but interconnected cases. An hour-long pilot episode loosely based on plot elements from Adams' 1987 novel was broadcast on BBC Four on 16 December 2010. Critical reception was generally positive. A full series of three one-hour episodes was subsequently commissioned in March 2011 and was broadcast on BBC Four in March 2012. The series was produced by ITV Studios and The Welded Tandem Picture Company for BBC Cymru Wales and shot in Bristol. The pilot was written by Howard Overman and directed by Damon Thomas. The full series was written by Overman, Matt Jones and Jamie Mathieson and directed by Tom Shankland. The series along with the pilot episode was released on DVD on 26 March 2012 by ITV Studios Home Entertainment. An original television soundtrack album featuring music from the series composed by Daniel Pemberton was released by 1812 Recordings on 5 March 2012. Production Background The novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has its origins in the incomplete 1979 Doctor Who television serial Shada, featuring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Location filming in Cambridge had been completed, but a studio technicians' dispute at the BBC meant that studio segments were not completed, and the serial was never transmitted. As a result of the serial's cancellation, Adams reused a number of ideas from this script and his other Doctor Who scripts as the basis for a new novel, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective