The series was created by Howard Overman and stars Stephen Mangan as holistic detective Dirk Gently and Darren Boyd as his sidekick Richard MacDuff.

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.

Each novel features new characters and scenarios, although Dirk (real name Svlad Cjelli), his "ex-secretary" Janice Pearce and Sergeant, later Inspector, Gilks recur in each.

[1] During Hitchcon - a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy convention - Ed Victor, a literary agent who represents Adams's estate announced that a television adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was in production.

"[17] Stephen Mangan, writing a BBC blog on the programme stated "In my opinion, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul are unfilmable as written...too much happens, there are too many ideas".

Although time travel is involved in the solution, the novel's entire St Cedd's College / Electric Monk / Coleridge strand is omitted, although key words relating to these elements do appear on Dirk's whiteboard when it is first seen, though they are never subsequently referred to.

Mangan already knew the novel and the author's works, stating in a press release "I've been a fan of Douglas Adams ever since the Hitchhiker's radio series which I used to record as a child and listen to over and over again in my bedroom.

"[16] Cast alongside him were Darren Boyd and Helen Baxendale, both of whom had previously worked with Mangan in Green Wing and Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years respectively.

[20] Other regular cast members are Jason Watkins as Detective Inspector Gilks and Lisa Jackson as Dirk's secretary Janice Pearce.

Episode two featured roles for Bill Paterson, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Lydia Wilson, Andrew Leung, Will Sharpe and Bethan Hanks.

[23][24] The second series episode also featured extensive filming around the University of Bristol, with Wills Hall doubling as the fictional Cambridge College St. Cedd's.

Bristol has such a thing...a joint venture between the two universities, with a very helpful professor, but its landlord was an American corporation with the most unimaginably anal restrictions on access.

In creating the distinctive sound for the main titles and incidental music, Pemberton made use of a Marxophone, a zither that is a cross between a hammered dulcimer and a piano.

He claims that he follows the principles of quantum mechanics (although it is implied when he speaks to an expert in these fields that he doesn't really understand them); most people suspect he is just a conman and he rarely gets paid by clients and is therefore in almost permanent financial difficulty.

[17][29] In the pilot episode, Dirk bumps into a former university friend, Richard MacDuff, who has been made redundant from a job at an electricity board, and takes on a case for him.

Sam Wollaston in The Guardian stated "Coming to it fresh, it's a neat story about aforementioned missing cat and time travel, with a smattering of quantum physics and the fundamental connectedness of things.

With his alarmed-spaniel eyes and jutting-jawed stroppiness, his geography teacher elbow-patches and Medusan hair, he radiates mess...His ineptness as a sleuth provided some fine comic moments.

[33] Paul Whitelaw in Metro was also positive, although he noted "At times it felt forced, with a sense of trying slightly too hard when a touch more subtlety would have brought out the essential Adamsian eccentricity.

"[34] Dan Owen of Obsessed with Film noted that the adaptation played with the idea of inexplicable situations: "Purists may grumble this isn't the Dirk Gently they wanted to see, but it's more accessible and practicable.

Jane Simon, writing in The Mirror stated "It's just a shame creator Douglas Adams isn't around to see how Howard Overman has transferred Dirk to the screen.

"[37] Mark Braxton in the Radio Times likewise agreed that "Overman has plucked the comic essence of Adams from his novel...and worked it into a digestible, enjoyably eccentric format.

"[38] Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian, meanwhile, found a comparison between the tone of the series and 1960s spy/detective capers; "Never since The Avengers has there been anything so unremittingly silly on British television as Dirk Gently...Dainty harpsichord music tells us we're back in an era of TV misrule, in whose glory days John Steed, Mrs Peel and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) played fast and loose with viewers' intelligences.

"[27] AA Gill, who had previously expressed a dislike for the source novel when discussing the pilot episode[39] was less complimentary, writing in the Sunday Times on 11 March 2012 "Who'd have guessed that this would ever get recommissioned?...It has to get a nomination as the greatest waste of the most talent for the least visible purpose or reward.

"[41] Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent felt that the programme's qualities were "spread a little too thinly over a nonsensical thriller plot' and that "laughs... were far too widely spaced in a script that could have done with a lot more editing.

"[45] An article in the Metro noted that after Mangan's tweet, the show quickly became one of the top trending topics in the UK and an online petition was set up opposing the decision.