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Have you ever had a really strong memory of scene from a book or movie, but on rewatching/reading, it didn't happen?
I just watched "The City of Death", the Dr Who serial which Douglas Adams helped write and then cheerfully reused the plot of for "Dirk Gently's Detective Agency". I haven't seen the serial since the mid 80s, where it stuck in my memory as one of my favourites, but reading the book in the late 90s was struck by the similarities.
Now as it turns out the plot is somewhat less like Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency than I remember, which isn't that big of a surprise. But there's a scene I remember vividly:
The doctor confronts the bad-guy in his antique shop, and the bad guy laughs, and rips back the wallpaper (which has been there hundreds of years) and painted on the wall are several copies of the Mona Lisa! And at that point, you realise.. HE IS LEONARDO DA VINCI! DUN DUN DUN!!
Except, the bad guy doesn't own an antique shop, he sells antiques on the sly at auction. He does have a house with yellow-y walls full of antiques, and in the cellar, behind a brick wall which has been there hundreds of years, in a cabinet, are several paintings of the Mona Lisa on canvas (which he intends to sell) And they are revealed when he's not in the room, and he's not Da Vinci, though he is in cahoots with someone who was around at the same time.
The "It's the same guy, he's just been hanging around" mistake is I assume a result of that being (kind of) the twist in "Dirk Gently's Detective Agency" but everything is just a bit off, the sort of mix of things you might expect from the half-forgotten memories of a child. I did wonder what the point of painting them on the wall was :)
Anyway, datedness and general "Dr Who crapness" aside it was pretty good. And Dr/Romana OTP, she's at least the right species. I still found the plot a bit confused, the book is definitely better.
I just watched "The City of Death", the Dr Who serial which Douglas Adams helped write and then cheerfully reused the plot of for "Dirk Gently's Detective Agency". I haven't seen the serial since the mid 80s, where it stuck in my memory as one of my favourites, but reading the book in the late 90s was struck by the similarities.
Now as it turns out the plot is somewhat less like Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency than I remember, which isn't that big of a surprise. But there's a scene I remember vividly:
The doctor confronts the bad-guy in his antique shop, and the bad guy laughs, and rips back the wallpaper (which has been there hundreds of years) and painted on the wall are several copies of the Mona Lisa! And at that point, you realise.. HE IS LEONARDO DA VINCI! DUN DUN DUN!!
Except, the bad guy doesn't own an antique shop, he sells antiques on the sly at auction. He does have a house with yellow-y walls full of antiques, and in the cellar, behind a brick wall which has been there hundreds of years, in a cabinet, are several paintings of the Mona Lisa on canvas (which he intends to sell) And they are revealed when he's not in the room, and he's not Da Vinci, though he is in cahoots with someone who was around at the same time.
The "It's the same guy, he's just been hanging around" mistake is I assume a result of that being (kind of) the twist in "Dirk Gently's Detective Agency" but everything is just a bit off, the sort of mix of things you might expect from the half-forgotten memories of a child. I did wonder what the point of painting them on the wall was :)
Anyway, datedness and general "Dr Who crapness" aside it was pretty good. And Dr/Romana OTP, she's at least the right species. I still found the plot a bit confused, the book is definitely better.
