It's time to put Poirot to bed. The show has gone downhill badly over the last couple of seasons, but it really hits the wall now. David Suchet is looking old, tired and, worse, bored in the first of the new season's Poirot episode, "Elephants Can remember." He is just going through the motions, using a series of canned tics and smiles with no energy behind them. It is also obvious that the producers cut down on Poirot's screen time by using mystery writer Ariadne Oliver as a fill in. Suchet just doesn't really want to be there.
The story itself is mind-numbingly complicated. The implausibilites mount one after the other and the relationships among the character become more and more tangled. The final explication scene where Poirot explains what happened in detail, even though neither he nor anyone else was there to see it, goes on and on and on. For the climax, he pulls out the trite old standby - the relative to disappeared to Canada as a child! So, much as it pains me, I must say farewell to Poirot. Thanks for the fun and the many great stories, but it's time to stop now.
The story itself is mind-numbingly complicated. The implausibilites mount one after the other and the relationships among the character become more and more tangled. The final explication scene where Poirot explains what happened in detail, even though neither he nor anyone else was there to see it, goes on and on and on. For the climax, he pulls out the trite old standby - the relative to disappeared to Canada as a child! So, much as it pains me, I must say farewell to Poirot. Thanks for the fun and the many great stories, but it's time to stop now.