Deadline is reporting that The BBC has ordered their long-planned adaptation of Douglas Adams‘ novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency straight-to-series and they are now currently announcing that Elijah Wood has signed on to play Todd, Dirk’s sidekick.
Todd does not consider himself a sidekick. He is just flat out better than Dirk at a lot of things. He always attempts to solve matters with the fewest steps possible; despite being a compassionate, sweet, smarter-than-average man with biting wit, Todd often finds himself at the intersection of morally gray crossroads. Thus, his bad habits of lying and stealing have dire consequences that he can’t put off forever, even though he tries. As Todd describes himself to Dirk: “I am not your Watson, a**hole. I am not available for side-kicking on something I am not involved with. I am my own messed up person with my own messed up problems.”
The pilot for the series was written by Max Landis, the writer of Josh Trank’s Chronicle and he will also executive produce the series. The show is currently set for an eight episode run and it won’t even be the first time that the two have worked on TV together. Landis was also a producer on Wood’s FX series, Wilfred, for four seasons.
The show is expected to premier later this year, but no date has been set.