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Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a bonkers comic series and -- because screenwriter Max Landis of American Ultra and Chronicle is behind it -- you know the TV version will be equally bat-shit. That’s pretty much with Landis himself confirmed to our own Steve Weintraub during an interview at Comic-Con.

Starring Samuel Barnett as the eponymous detective and Elijah Wood as his reluctant assistant, the BBC America series follows the semi-psychic Dirk as he attempts to solve mysteries by going about his day-to-day life, while also tapping into abilities he doesn’t fully understand.

“It’s sort of the reverse version of Psych,” Landis says, “where you had a guy who’s a brilliant detective pretending to be psychic. This is a guy who’s a shitty detective, who is psychic, pretending to be a brilliant detective.”


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Image via BBC America

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, premiering this October 22, consists of eight episodes with one mystery per season. Landis explains it must be that way because every case is “so expansive and ridiculous and convoluted” that it couldn’t be one per episode.

Christian Bako, Neil Brown Jr., Fiona Dourif, Aaron Douglas, Jade Eshete, and Hannah Marks also feature. Watch Steve’s interview with Landis above, and you’ll find timestamps to some of the juicier tidbits below.

  • 0:16 — Landis gives a run down of the plot of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
  • 1:29 — Writer of five out of the eight episodes, Landis describes the show as “the reverse version of Psych.”
  • 1:40 — Landis describes the trajectory of the 8-episode Season 1 and why the template must be one mystery per season.
  • 2:18 — Landis runs down the line-up of directors, including Galaxy Quest’s Dean Parisot, The State’s Michael Patrick Jann, and Mr. Right’s Paco Cabezas.

If you watch what Landis had to say about Bright and his abandoned Pokemon movie by clicking the links.

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