The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

In a couple of episodes a character says 'possible' then corrects it with 'probable', which is likely a reference to probability and the Infinite Improbability Drive. There are also said to be 42 members of an organisation called Darkwing.

In the first series, the number 42 shows up a few times, such as on the wall of a death maze which Dirk Gently and his assistant/friend Todd Brotzman encounter. The 2016 BBC America adaption (later released on Netflix) included several references to Hitchhiker's. Thor also appears as a pivotal character in this radio adaption, as he did in the book. The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation exists in both this radio series and the Hitchhiker's series, having manufactured Marvin and other Genuine People Personalities in the Hitchhiker's books, and existing as an Earth-based corporation featured in Episode 1 of Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Thor also appeared in the Hitchhiker's book Life, the Universe and Everything. In the second book, Thor is an important character, and events include Asgard and the norse gods. During his investigation, Gently encounters exploding airport check-in counters, the gods of Norse mythology, insulting horoscopes, a sinister nursing home, a rhino phagic eagle, an I Ching calculator (to which everything calculated above the value of 4 is apparently 'a suffusion of yellow'), an omnipotent being who gives his powers to a lawyer and an advertising executive in exchange for clean linen, and an attractive American woman who gets angry when she can't get pizza delivered in London. Nearly incapacitated by guilt, Dirk resolves to take his now-late client's wild claims seriously. However, after disconnecting the television set the boy had been watching, the boy promptly breaks Dirk’s nose.

While at his recently deceased client’s house, he discovers that his client had a son. The aforementioned client is found in a sealed and heavily barricaded room, his head neatly removed several feet from his body and rotating on a turntable. The seriousness of his client's claims becomes clear when Dirk arrives several hours late for an appointment to find a swarm of police around his client's estate. A wealthy man in the record industry has retained him, spinning a story about being stalked by a seven-foot-tall, green-eyed, scythe-wielding monster.ĭirk pretends to understand the man's ravings involving potatoes and a contract signed in blood coming due when in reality, Dirk is musing about what he might do if he actually receives payment for his 'services' - such as getting rid of his refrigerator, which is so filthy inside that it has become the centrepiece of a showdown between himself and his cleaning woman. Dirk Gently, who calls himself a 'holistic detective', has happened upon what he thinks is a rather comfortable situation.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams