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1!! The original book
2* SerialNumbersFiledOff: Some characters are based on characters from [[Creator/DouglasAdams Douglas Adams']] ''Series/DoctorWho'' episodes:
3** Professor Chronotis was created for the cancelled episode, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada Shada]]". For copyright reasons, he's AmbiguouslyHuman here instead of being a Time Lord and his time machine is never referred to as a [=TARDIS=].
4** The Salaxalan engineer is basically Scarloth from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath City Of Death]]". Both are aliens whose spaceships crashed on Earth in the distant past with their explosions triggering the creation of life. They both want to go back in time to save their ships which will stop life evolving on Earth.
5
6!! The 2016 series
7* {{Adorkable}}:
8** Dirk is friendly and does show concern for others, but his social skills are a bit off. ''He'' is a bit off.
9** Farah's social skills are a bit lacking, but that doesn't make her any less likeable.
10* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The first season's score was written by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, known for his highly regarded soundtrack for ''Series/{{Utopia}}''. You can hear some familiar devices in certain sections. Bart's delightfully off-kilter {{Leitmotif}} is particularly nice.
11* CompleteMonster:
12** Season 1: Jake Rainey is the founder of the [[BodySurf Men of the Machine cult]], using the Soul Exchanger he found to serve as a body-jacking device and, through both direct and indirect means, [[GreaterScopeVillain kicking off the plot]] of the season with his villainy. Rainey used the Exchanger to steal the bodies of dozens of people for himself over the years, maintaining his youth and killing the victims of his crimes for decades, and would regularly powerful people to KillAndReplace with his own foot soldiers. Subjecting his cult members to soul exchanging with animals for weeks on end to break their will and turn them into his "drones", [[BadBoss Rainey]] also would callously dictate which bodies his servants would switch into and when, uncaring of their consent in the matter. Rainey soon declared war on Zackariah Webb for trying to retrieve the Exchanger, and murdered many of Webb's associates before assassinating the man's wife and threatening his young daughter, uncaring if his own cult died in the process [[ItsAllAboutMe as long as he secured his own power base over all he saw fit]].
13** Season 2 has two {{Evil Sorcerer}}s who ally to cause mayhem:
14*** [[EvilMentor "The Mage" Kellum]] is an evil conqueror who has recently set his sights on the mystical land of Wendimoor and [[ManipulativeBastard manipulates a conflict]] between two powerful families, the Trosts and the Dengdamors, hoping to cause enough bloodshed to weaken both sides such that he can wipe out the survivors with his own armies. [[PlayingBothSides To instigate the violence]], the Mage sells guns from the real world to the Dengdamors and blames the kidnapping of one of their princes on the Trosts. The Mage also [[TheCorrupter corrupts]] the mentally unstable Suzie Boreton in the real world into becoming his apprentice, who herself goes on to cause a slew of deaths. Realizing he is destined to be defeated in Wendimoor, the Mage cowardly abandons his conquest, instead choosing to satisfy his sadism by tormenting real world denizens, and tries to force a man to kill himself by driving a car full of explosives into the portal to Wendimoor to guarantee the Mage's safety. A [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered tyrant]], the Mage cared for nothing but sating his sick impulses and securing his own well-being.
15*** [[VainSorceress Suzanne "Suzie" Boreton]] herself is seemingly [[FromNobodyToNightmare a downtrodden working-class mother]] who reveals [[EvilAllAlong her true nature]] after receiving the Mage's apprentice wand. When [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse called out]] as being responsible for every bit of misery in her own life, Suzie angrily incinerates the women reprimanding her and joins the Mage at the promise of being made Queen of Wendimoor. When the Mage abandons his own plans for conquest out of fear at losing, Suzie takes matters into her own hands, conducting a massacre in a hospital to murder a man prophesied to defeat the villain in Wendimoor. Taking command over the Mage's armies, Suzie continues his plan to manipulate the land's warring leading families into killing each other before having her men kill the surviving few. [[AGodAmI Declaring herself the most powerful being in existence]], Suzie moves to murder the few who can stop her, proving herself a monstrous megalomaniac just like her mentor.
16* CreepyAwesome:
17** Bart, the holistic assassin.
18** It seems that her traits have rubbed off on [[spoiler: Ken]]. After TakingALevelInBadass.
19* EnsembleDarkhorse:
20** The Rowdy Three are real scene stealers, with their appearances, powers and occasional BigDamnHeroes moments.
21** Detectives Estevez and Zimmerfield are both pretty popular for their MundaneMadeAwesome efforts, and ButtMonkey status in a world with so much supernatural occurrences.
22** Idiosyncratic shapeshifter and "Holistic Actress" Mona Wilder.
23** Zachariah Webb/[[spoiler:Patrick Spring]] the time-traveling, {{Steampunk}}-armored PapaWolf.
24** Panto's sister Litzbitz, for her OnlySaneMan status and quirky appearance.
25** Sheriff Hobbs and Tina, for their BunnyEarsLawyer status and how well they just go along with the crazy happenings.
26** the cute little cat with the soul of a shark inside of it, waiting to burst out.
27** Lydia Spring, for her apparent friendship with Farrah and how she spends a lot of the first seasons body-swapped with a dog.
28** Mr. Priest, TheDreaded of the already dreaded Project Blackwing.
29* HarsherInHindsight: Amanda's pararibulitis and isolation in her house could end up being this due to the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020, which causes a massive lockdown where people isolated themselves in their houses.
30* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments:
31** When Amanda is smashing up a police car with the Rowdy 3 after first meeting them, she suffers another pararibulitis attack. They all crowd around her, you expect something bad to happen since they feed on people's fear... then they end up helping her, by sucking the negative energy out of her and causing the attack to stop.
32--->'''Cross:''' You're not gonna have to put up with that shit anymore.
33--->[''Amanda gives them all a small but grateful smile'']
34** Todd [[spoiler: coming back to Dirk after the case is over.]]
35** The last scenes of the finale before the cliffhanger: Dirk, Todd, and Farah start the titular detective agency, Amanda is dancing happily with the Rowdy 3, and Ken and Bart travel together.
36* HesJustHiding: [[spoiler: Estevez]], while presumably dead due to his absence from season two, was still clinging to life after being gut-shot in the season 1 finale, and plenty of fans held out hope that he'd return alive both before and after season 2 aired.
37* IronWoobie: The Blackwing projects. They've lived their lives as experiments by the CIA and suffer trauma from it, but they still try to live their lives the way they want to.
38* JerkassWoobie: [[spoiler: Hugo Friedkin becomes this in season 2, when [[HeelRealization it dawns on him he's been the bad guy the whole time, but was too dumb to realize it.]] He ends up helping Dirk, only to get shot by Ken.]]
39* LesYay: The way Tina fangirls over Farah and constantly asks her along on investigations seems like a developing crush.
40** When Lydia tells Farah that she loves her, she probably means it platonically, but the speech leading up to it seems a lot like Lydia building up to a LoveConfession.
41* LostInMediasRes: The first episode rapidly introduces a number of unexplained plot points which are resolved throughout the season.
42* MagnificentBastard:
43** [[OnlySaneMan Ken Adams]] evolves from his Season 1 role as a [[HypercompetentSidekick put-upon sidekick]] to Bart, to a true DiabolicalMastermind in Season 2. Already proving himself to be a clever schemer with helping Bart track down Dirk Gently and using his computer skills to help solve the Spring case, Ken takes advantage of his extended imprisonment at Blackwing to manipulate Hugo Friedkin into using Ken as an asset. Ken tricks Friedkin into steadily promoting him to higher ranks with each passing day as Ken grows knowledgeable about Blackwing's operations and its subjects, and uses his enhanced cunning to reign in the psychotic Osmund Priest and turn the shapeshifter Mona into a pawn. Overcoming his former cowardly traits to stand up to Wendimoor knights and defend Blackwing's base from an assault, Ken finalizes his takeover of the entire organization by banishing Friedkin to die, charismatically winning over the higher-ups to make himself the permanent Director of Blackwing, and convinces even the loose cannon Bart to ally with him once more as Ken makes plans to [[WellIntentionedExtremist bring "order" to the world]] by bringing all the former Blackwing subjects under his banner.
44** Season 1: "[[HeWhoFightsMonsters Patrick Spring]]", seemingly a recently-murdered billionaire, is really Zachariah Webb, a brilliant inventor from the 1880s who [[GadgeteerGenius invented a time machine]]. When it was taken by the cult-like Men of the Machine, Webb traveled to the future, renaming himself to become a billionaire to gain the resources to fight them. When his wife is killed by the leader of the cultists, Jake Rainey, Spring [[BestServedCold spends decades plotting his revenge]], eventually massacring his way through Rainey's men before gunning him down as well. Focused on [[PapaWolf protecting his precious daughter Lydia]], Spring manipulates the heroes through clues, successfully securing Lydia's safety and completing the time loop.
45* MemeticBadass: Farah Black should be one by now.
46* {{Moe}}:
47** MotorMouth StepfordSmiler Dirk Gently can be plain adorable.
48** Once it becomes clear that there's more to Bart than an AxCrazy killer, her lack of social skills, loneliness, and sense of confidence can paint her in an endearing light.
49** Charming, well-meaning BunnyEarsLawyer and small-town sheriff Sherlock Hobbs is charming without trying to be.
50** Mona, the sunny and ditzy shapeshifter with a ChildLikeVoice inspires feelings of endearment.
51* NightmareFuel:
52** The CIA program, Blackwing. They experimented on people who have special abilities [[spoiler: and the program gets revived at the end.]]
53** Pararibulitis. A nerve disease that causes painful hallucinations that feel completely real and it ''can kill you.'' In fact, it is heavily implied that the disease killed Todd and Amanda's aunt. [[spoiler:And the first season ends on a particularly harrowing note: as Amanda tearfully calls him to tell him that her and the Rowdy Three are being taken by Blackwing, [[WhamShot Todd contracts it himself.]] The final scene where he lies in a fetal position, screaming in agony, hands burning, as Amanda desperately tries to ask where he is, is ''horrifying''.]]
54** The creepy, wide-eyed stare and jerky head movements of the girl in the house Todd returns the dog to. It gets worse when you realize [[spoiler: the girl is Lydia Spring...body swapped with the dog.]]
55** Suzie's ImplacableWoman rampage through the hospital in "Girl Power." Especially after [[spoiler: she gets shot in the head, ''survives'', and continues the chase with a bullet hole in her forehead and her face covered in blood.]]
56*** Everything about Suzie is this trope. She's the result of what you'd get when you'd give a normal person the power to bend reality to her will.
57** Ken becomes this when he went FromNobodyToNightmare.
58* TearJerker: In the penultimate episode, Todd [[spoiler: finding out that Dirk lied to him and tells him not to speak to him again after the case is over.]]
59** [[spoiler:Zimmerfield's murder in episode 5, and Estevez's reaction to it. It is clear in the following episodes that his death deeply affected him and drove him partly insane.]]
60** [[spoiler: Todd and Amanda's relationship breaking down in episode 6 after he tells her the truth about what he did.]] After seeing how close they were, and how much he cared about her, seeing it all fall apart is upsetting.
61-->'''Amanda:''' You are ''exactly'' the piece of shit everyone says you are.
62** Bart spends the second season trying, and with Panto Trost's good-natured help ultimately managing, to believe that she doesn't have to be a killer. Then, just when [[HopeSpot it seems things are working out,]] [[spoiler: she has to watch Panto get gunned down in front of her, along with everyone he tried to help, and finds herself facing an army of gloating Kellum Knights. The next time we see her, [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome she's sitting on a pile of Knight corpses,]] covered in blood, drearily telling Francis that she's "just a weapon." While Francis says [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre he hopes she'll one day realise that that's not true]], that day is clearly not today, and in the end she can't think of anything better to do with herself than to return to Blackwing and Ken's questionable friendship.]]
63* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The FBI agent trapped inside a mouses body could have escaped and remained a recurring character, kind of like Lydia in Rapunzel's body. Also, the Men of the Machine's Drones are often portrayed as more unintelligent and misguided than evil, and it might have been nice if some had been allowed to survive and have a HeelFaceTurn.
64* ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs: Dirk Gently is Doctor Who, written by someone having an acid trip.
65* TheWoobie: Every damn character.
66** Dirk explicitly tells Todd he's never had a friend in his whole life.
67** Todd made some deeply selfish mistakes in the past that harmed himself as well as other people in his life. As a result, he fully believes himself to be a screwup and a terrible person and thinks that nothing he ever does will be able to atone him. When he develops Pararibulitis at the end of season 1/start of season 2, he tells Farah that he believes he deserves it.
68** Due to her disease, Amanda is forced to live a sheltered life confined to her house, unable to even go outside and get groceries without the risk of a hallucination. As such, she is fully dependent on her brother. Made even worse by the revelation that [[spoiler: Todd lied about having her disease and being cured, meaning she has to live with the fact that she will suffer from it for the rest of her life.]]
69** Bart is a borderline-feral assassin who has never experienced normal human life and doesn't understand the concept of friendship. She also suffers from a feeling of lacking control in her life and her attempts to gain control inevitably end in disaster.
70** Ken, an ordinary electrician, is forcibly dragged into the plot by Bart's attempting to kill him under the assumption that he's Dirk Gently. He later bonds with Bart, only to be captured by Project Blackwing and held captive for two months and counting.
71** Silas has no idea where the love of his life is or if he'll even come back, his attempts to prevent a pointless war that will claim countless lives are consistently shot down, his mother is cruel to him, and to top it all off, [[spoiler: his brother is shot in front of him moments after they're reunited, which also destroys any chance of peace.]]
72** Subverted with Suzie Borden. She wanted to be this trope but in truth she's really a BitchInSheepsClothing.

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