Agatha Christie's most famous detective solves cases with stylish panache through the 1930s.
POIROT has much to recommend it, foremost David Suchet's winsome performance of a literary character who can prove annoying. And, of course, it has the breadth of Christie's clever stories and novels.
Here's my problem: I understand fiction, especially novels, must be changed from one medium to another. Occasionally, by TV and movie writers combining characters and trimming subplots, I've seen novels improved.
But, by and large, I like to see novels, especially those I love, conveyed accurately to the screen so I don't have to read them so often.
POIROT alters nearly every Christie story it touched. The makers made wise choices and poor choices.
Sometimes these choices were necessary. Agatha Christie's first Poirot tale takes place at the time of World War One. Her last happens in the 1970s. Over that time period Poirot's society changes to reflect the times when Christie wrote her novels and stories, yet Poirot, already retired when he starts out, chugs along the same for nearly sixty years. To avoid this paradox, apart from a few episodes, all POIROTs take place in a glamorous 1930s milieu. And the series is better for it.
Many of the Poirot short stories are presented as a detective agency with Miss Lemon as his secretary and Poirot is nearly always aided by the loyal and game, if somewhat silly, Hastings (Hugh Frasier, whose delightful characterization owes more to P G Wodehouse than Christie). And nearly always, Inspector Japp is close at hand. Actually, readers of Christie know these things never really converged all at once in so many stories. Too, each story is placed within a framing device that rarely comes directly from Christie.
These are minor quibbles and detract in no way from my enjoyment of POIROT. In fact, in those later episodes where Hastings, Lemon and Japp disappear, I miss them.
And POIROT often gets things right. One of my favorite Poirot stories is the novel PERIL AT END HOUSE. This is also one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) POIROT episodes. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy some episodes that have cosmetic changes even when I am a fan of the stories.
But as the series progresses, especially as the hour episodes grow into movies, the TV writers get too big for their britches and make wholesale changes. Some of these are innocuous. Others are absurd, as when (no spoilers, now) the identity of the murderer is changed, or the reason for the murder. One has to keep an eye peeled for those episodes where the alterations are egregious.
And too often unnecassary social commentary is injected. I have a bias against social commentary in art, anyway. I don't need some dumb writer exploiting entertainment to palm off his half-baked political bugaboos on me. I have bugaboos of my own. When I ask a fellow writer what his story is about I expect him to say, "It's about this guy falsely accused of murder on the run from the police and the real killers." Not, "It's about the oppression of the drinking classes" or "It's about the decline of civilization." Christie's books were hardly ever political. She wanted as many readers as she could get regardless of politics. The series should've maintained that stance. I don't take well to political hectoring. Christie belongs to me as much as to them. Why should they have a poetic license to drive me away?
They also coarsen stories, if stories of brutal murders can be coarsened. The otherwise excellent "Sad Cypress" had a bedroom scene tacked on. Why? And in one episode a stoning is included. It doesn't come from Christie. Why is it there? A reviewer in imdb criticizes Christie for it. Yes, if he'd done proper research he'd know he couldn't lay it at her door, but the problem should never have arisen.
I love Christie and I do love POIROT. Often, the series livens dry Q&A material. At other times it takes so many liberties Christie seems irrelevant. Overall, POIROT is a good series, well-acted. But it's not always Christie's Poirot, and it ruined some of my favorite Poirot novels in the transition. Tread warily.
POIROT has much to recommend it, foremost David Suchet's winsome performance of a literary character who can prove annoying. And, of course, it has the breadth of Christie's clever stories and novels.
Here's my problem: I understand fiction, especially novels, must be changed from one medium to another. Occasionally, by TV and movie writers combining characters and trimming subplots, I've seen novels improved.
But, by and large, I like to see novels, especially those I love, conveyed accurately to the screen so I don't have to read them so often.
POIROT alters nearly every Christie story it touched. The makers made wise choices and poor choices.
Sometimes these choices were necessary. Agatha Christie's first Poirot tale takes place at the time of World War One. Her last happens in the 1970s. Over that time period Poirot's society changes to reflect the times when Christie wrote her novels and stories, yet Poirot, already retired when he starts out, chugs along the same for nearly sixty years. To avoid this paradox, apart from a few episodes, all POIROTs take place in a glamorous 1930s milieu. And the series is better for it.
Many of the Poirot short stories are presented as a detective agency with Miss Lemon as his secretary and Poirot is nearly always aided by the loyal and game, if somewhat silly, Hastings (Hugh Frasier, whose delightful characterization owes more to P G Wodehouse than Christie). And nearly always, Inspector Japp is close at hand. Actually, readers of Christie know these things never really converged all at once in so many stories. Too, each story is placed within a framing device that rarely comes directly from Christie.
These are minor quibbles and detract in no way from my enjoyment of POIROT. In fact, in those later episodes where Hastings, Lemon and Japp disappear, I miss them.
And POIROT often gets things right. One of my favorite Poirot stories is the novel PERIL AT END HOUSE. This is also one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) POIROT episodes. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy some episodes that have cosmetic changes even when I am a fan of the stories.
But as the series progresses, especially as the hour episodes grow into movies, the TV writers get too big for their britches and make wholesale changes. Some of these are innocuous. Others are absurd, as when (no spoilers, now) the identity of the murderer is changed, or the reason for the murder. One has to keep an eye peeled for those episodes where the alterations are egregious.
And too often unnecassary social commentary is injected. I have a bias against social commentary in art, anyway. I don't need some dumb writer exploiting entertainment to palm off his half-baked political bugaboos on me. I have bugaboos of my own. When I ask a fellow writer what his story is about I expect him to say, "It's about this guy falsely accused of murder on the run from the police and the real killers." Not, "It's about the oppression of the drinking classes" or "It's about the decline of civilization." Christie's books were hardly ever political. She wanted as many readers as she could get regardless of politics. The series should've maintained that stance. I don't take well to political hectoring. Christie belongs to me as much as to them. Why should they have a poetic license to drive me away?
They also coarsen stories, if stories of brutal murders can be coarsened. The otherwise excellent "Sad Cypress" had a bedroom scene tacked on. Why? And in one episode a stoning is included. It doesn't come from Christie. Why is it there? A reviewer in imdb criticizes Christie for it. Yes, if he'd done proper research he'd know he couldn't lay it at her door, but the problem should never have arisen.
I love Christie and I do love POIROT. Often, the series livens dry Q&A material. At other times it takes so many liberties Christie seems irrelevant. Overall, POIROT is a good series, well-acted. But it's not always Christie's Poirot, and it ruined some of my favorite Poirot novels in the transition. Tread warily.