The Labours of Hercules
- Episode aired Aug 18, 2014
- TV-14
- 1h 29m
Poirot's pursuit of an infamous art thief leads him to a snowbound hotel in the Swiss Alps, where he is met with a plethora of mysteries and the reappearance of a familiar face from the past... Read allPoirot's pursuit of an infamous art thief leads him to a snowbound hotel in the Swiss Alps, where he is met with a plethora of mysteries and the reappearance of a familiar face from the past.Poirot's pursuit of an infamous art thief leads him to a snowbound hotel in the Swiss Alps, where he is met with a plethora of mysteries and the reappearance of a familiar face from the past.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe original book features Poirot taking on twelve cases (12 short stories) each one referencing Greek mythology. The TV adaptation is a combination of some of those stories into a single location. The central plot is "The Erymanthian Boar" which takes place in a Swiss mountain-top hotel as Poirot searches for master-criminal Marrascaud. In "The Arcadian Deer" Poirot is asked by a car mechanic to locate the maid of a Russian ballerina. "The Stymphalean Birds" features a man trying to help a woman in an abusive marriage. "The Girdle of Hippolyta" is about stolen paintings. While "The Capture of Cerberus" has Poirot reunited with Countess Vera Rossakoff.
- GoofsPoirot speaks poor French when he says "Je m'excuse", which translates literally as "I excuse myself", which is impolite. He should ask to be excused with "Excuse-moi", or say sorry with "Je suis désolé".
- Quotes
Dr. Lutz: May I ask you something? Why do you insist on referring to yourself in the third person? It is intensely irritating!
Hercule Poirot: Because, Doctor Lutz, it helps Poirot achieve a healthy distance from his genius.
A couple of aspects are mixed, the script has evidence of very thoughtful and quite charming writing as well as setting up the beginning very well, at other times it could have been tighter and more developed. The direction from Andy Wilson shows skill, accommodation of the actors and time for us to take in the atmosphere and surroundings, but again it could have been tighter and not as turgid as it did have a tendency to become.
The story has a well-set-up opening scene with some nicely played scenes and great atmosphere, but because it contains elements of several stories some of the storytelling and structure becomes jumbled. In particular the last thirty minutes, which had a lot going on but not quite enough explanation and detail, in the end it felt convoluted, at times incomplete and rushed through. The pacing was not always on the mark either, the final solution could have been slowed down but instead of completely absorbing, despite a fair bit going on, the adaptation felt turgid(mostly very uncharacteristic for a Poirot adaptation, especially from after the opening sequence to half an hour through which was in all honesty not easy to get into, the worst of the dodgy accents were here too). With the exception of Poirot and to a lesser extent the Countess, the characters are rather stock, they serve a point to the story but they are not developed enough to let us care or wholly believe in them, and while the production values are fine on the whole the lighting is too murky in places.
In all, not a terrible adaptation, it looks good, has great atmosphere and it's generally well-acted particularly from Suchet, but underwhelming, with more development and less of a turgid jumble with less of a sense of cramming in too much it would have been better. I also couldn't help feeling that an adaptation of The Labours of Hercules would have fared better as each and every story forming it being an hour-long episode each from about 15-20 years earlier. By all means they did their best here and it was a good try but it doesn't quite work, especially disappointing as it is the penultimate episode and after Elephants Can Remember- which is actually better than its source material) and Dead Man's Folly, also from the 13th season, being so excellent(Big Four was let down by the final twenty five minutes but was quite good up to there). 6/10 Bethany Cox
- TheLittleSongbird
- Nov 10, 2013
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- Saint Hilaire du Touvet, France(Funicular Railway)
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