Agatha Christie is one of the greatest mystery writers that ever lived. She set the standard by what all other mystery writers strive to achieve. Two of her greatest reoccurring characters were Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Over the years the BBC has made most of Christie’s books featuring these characters into TV movies. This collection brings you 21 one of them.
David Suchet began playing the famous Belgian private detective Poirot in 1989. Since then he has played the sleuth over 60 times. In 2007 Suchet expressed an interest in adapting the remaining Poirot stories by 2011. This collection contains the 12 episodes made between 2000 and 2006.
These episodes range from ok to pretty good. For the most part they all follow a similar plot: We are introduced to the characters, one is murdered, several have motive and Poirot sets about finding the clues and figuring out whom the guilty party is. In the end he gathers all the suspects in a room and lays out what happened ultimately getting the murderer to confess. Since all the episodes are so similar you have to find the characters interesting in order to enjoy the episode. Highlights of the Poirot episodes include “Mystery Of The Blue Train,” “Five Little Pigs” and “Cards On The Table.”
In “Five Little Pigs” a young woman comes to Poirot and asks him to prove her mother innocent of a crime she was hanged for 14 years earlier. So Poirot must interview those involved and find the truth in all their versions of what happened. “Blue Train” is an interesting story that follows the regular plot and is greatly improved by the appearance of Elliot Gould. “Cards On The Table” adds a nice angle to the plot putting three other Sleuths at Poirot’s side to assist him, but could one of them be the murderer?
There were twelve Miss Marple episodes produced between 1984 and 1992 starring Joan Hickson. Nine of those episodes are presented here. Miss Marple is an elderly woman who comes off as aloof, but is really sharp and does the whole amateur detective thing as a past time. She is always able to figure out what the local police cannot.
These episodes pale in comparison to the Poirot ones. They feel very dated and have stiff lifelessness to them that make them very unpleasant to sit through. Miss Marple just isn’t nearly as interesting a character as Hercule Poirot. This collection would have been much better served to have nine more Poirot episodes instead.
Still in all, it was fun to try and following along with the clues and try to figure out who did it, even in the less interesting episodes. Sadly, I was unable to guess right once.
Episodes:
(NOTE: The episodes are listed in chronological order, not the order in which they appear in the box set.)
Poirot Season 7
The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd 1/2/2000
Lord Edgware Dies 2/19/2000
Poirot Season 8
Evil Under The Sun 4/20/2001
Murder In Mesopotamia 7/8/2001
Poirot Season 9
Five Little Pigs 12/14/2003
Sad Cypress 12/26/2003
Death On The Nile 4/12/2004
The Hollow 4/26/2004
Poirot Season 10
The Mystery Of The Blue Train 12/11/2005
Cards On The Table 12/11/2005
After The Funeral 3/26/2006
Taken At The Flood 4/2/2006
Miss Marple Episodes
The Moving Finger 2/21/1985
The Murder At the Vicarage 12/25/1986
At Betram’s Hotel 1/25/1987
Nemesis 2/8/1987
4:50 From Paddington 2/25/1987
Sleeping Murder 1/11/1987
A Caribbean Mystery 12/25/1989
They Do It With Mirrors 12/29/1991
The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side 12/27/1992
The shows are presented in fullscreen 1:33.1. Sound is in Dolby 2.0 Stereo sound. All BBC series seem to have that low-budget look, these are no exception. However, the Poirot episodes look much crisper and cleaner than the Marple ones. The Marple episodes look a little muddy.
Biographies: Most of the Poirot discs contain text bios for Agatha Christie, David Suchet and Hercule Poirot. They are the same on each disc. Most of the Marple discs offer bios for Christie, Joan Hickson and Miss Marple.
Hercule Poirot Index: An Index of all of Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories. Again this appears on most Poirot discs.
Miss Marple Index: An Index of all of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories. This appears on most Marple discs.
These are pretty good episodes (the Poirot’s are much more interesting than the Marple’s), but this is a very expensive box set. And after snooping around on-line I found that all these episodes are previously available in other collections. So I don’t really know what reason there was to release this one. If only Poirot were around to help us solve this mystery, n’est-ce pas?
A&E and BBC present Agatha Christie: Poirot And Marple Crime Anthology Collection. Produced by Carnival Films and BBC TV. Starring David Suchet and Joan Hickson. Running time: 2079 minutes on 17 discs. Not Rated. Released on DVD: July 28, 2009. Available at Amazon.com.
