Dirk Gently (oops)

I have only seen this show once last year and as both
Cliff and I enjoyed it when I found out it is back on
again I recorded it.

The basic story was an elderly woman hires Dirk to find
her missing cat. When he leaves the woman's house he
sees someone breaking into the house next door. This
turns out to be McDuff a man he went to university with
16 years ago.

McDuff is now living with Susan, whom they also were at
University with.

Dirk explains what he is doing. They find muddy paw
prints in a ware house across the street from the old
woman's house. It was McDuff's idea that the cat might
be there.

The prints end on a metal looking trap door in the
floor of the warehouse. There is also a single petel
from a rose on the cover. Wires from the cover lead to
a number of computers and video screens. Dirk presses
a button on a computer and it announces that the system
will explode in twenty seconds, which it does.

Turns out that a billionaire Gordon Wade is renting
the ware house. He has been missing since Friday 29th
February 2010. Now this is where the first mistake
occured. I don't know if many people would have picked
it up, but the 29th only occurs every 4 years and the
last time was 29th February,2012. The time before that
was 29th February, 2008. There was no such date in 2010!

However this was the date that the cat "Henry" went
missing too.

Dirk interviews Susan and finds out that she used to date
Gordon. He is a computer genuis who often stood her
up because he got wrapped up in his work. On Dec 5th 1994,
she tells him as it is her birthday he better be at her
house by 8 p.m. or it is over. He doesn't show but claimed
it was because he was hit by a car. She does not believe
him and dumped him. At least once a year he comes to see
her and asks her to marry him. Her answer is nearly always
the same. They had their time it is past he blew it and
there is no going back!

Dirt has a drink with McDuff. He has an almost schooner
size beer but only drinks a couple of mouthfuls then downs
a whisky. He leaves. The bartender comes over to the table
and tells McDuff that Dirk said McDuff would pay. As the
bartender backs away we see that the schooner opposite McDuff
is now EMPTY!
This is the second mistake.

Dirk feels that the connection in all this is McDuff so he
puts him in a trance. He takes McDuff back to 5th December
1994. Turns out that Gordon was telling the truth. Dirk
backed into him with his car. Dirk drove off and Gordon had
to go to the hospital.

Dirk goes to visit the old lady. He finds out that one
night she heard a scratching at her front door and a cat
crying and that is when George came into her life. He was
a wonderful cat and so attentive and loving. Her heart was
broken when he finallly died and she vowed to never have
another cat. But one day she was passing the pet store and
there was kitten in the window that was the spitting image
of George and that was when Henry came into her life.

Later Dirk and McDuff race to the old woman's house as Dirk
claims Susan is in dreadful danger.

Dirk announces to everyone he has the solution to where both
Henry and Gordon are.

Dirk says that Gordon being the genuis he is, he has invented
a time machine but when he went back to 5th Dec 1994, the cat
went with him. That time travel was very disconcerting to the
cat so of course he went straight away to the one place he was
familiar with, the old lady's house, that was the crying and
scratching she heard.

That Henry is where he has been since she buried him under a
tree in her backyard.

Susan is angry, she tells the old woman to ignore Dirk. He is
a con man and not to be believed. But the old woman says no
she believes him and is willing to pay him. Then he says "When
did you kill your husband?" She says it was the night George
showed up. He went to throw the cat out into the yard after it
showed up. Angiered the old lady hits him over the head with a
frypan. He falls over in the backyard.

Then we see what happens next. A man appears in her backyard
gate way. He is carrying a bunch of flowers. He asks if every
thing is OK and steps into the yard. The old lady panics and
hits and kills him.

But the old lady never admits that she killed the second man.

She says she believes the story about the cat as the man that
appeared in her gateway in 1994 was the missing billionaire,
whose picture Dirk had showed her earlier in the day. But that
they will not live to tell anyone as she has poisioned their tea.

Dirk, McDuff and Susan rush to the hospital, but are told they
HAVE NOT been posioned. When they and the police reach the old
woman's house it is to find her dead of a overdose!

Susan is angry with Dirk she says that he is the reason the old
woman killed herself as Henry was her whole world and when he
said that the cat was dead it meant that she had nothing to live
for! She still does not believe his story about the cat or
Gordon.

A couple of days later she is unpacking one of the old woman's
boxes and there is a paper dated 5th Dec 1994 and wrapped in it
was Gordon's mobile phone. She plays the messages on the phone
and there is the message from her to Gordon after the warehouse
exploded asking him to ring her!

Now here is a hugh mistake 1. Does anyone out there have a
mobile phone whose battery has not needed charging for 16 YEARS???
2. The mobile phone was back in 1994 when the warehouse exploded
so how could the message from Susan in 2010 be on the phone?

Another thing was I don't believe that Gordon thought the whole
transporting back in time to save his relationship with Susan
through as the reason he invented time travel was to save the
relationship, but if he had saved the relationship then he would
not have needed to invent time travel, the paradox that was faced
in the remake of Well's "The Time Machine."

I wonder what Susan would have thought if Gordon had made it to
her front door and she opened it expecting to see the 22 year old
Gordon and instead there would be standing the 38 year old version!

Still I liked the funny side of the show. I'm sure 95% of the
viewers would not have noticed any of these faults!!