We are down to the last 2 Poirot tv shows looking forward to see how this is handled.
Then Curtain. I will have tissues ready. It is going to be like loosing a dear friend. :-(....
Agree, I will probably cry for days. I find TV pretty dire anyway, so they'll be this gap where Poirot was. I thnik that ITV could commission another Agatha Christie drama. They might make a re-make of Partners In Crime?
oh, you people are so lucky to be able to watch these last episodes so soon!! so many Christie and Poirot fans around the world will have to wait maybe a whole year... ( ENJOY!!
Normally other countries air Poirot first, so I was surprised. But my recordings of Elephants and Dead Man's Folly didn't come out. I was furious. I tried watching them on ITV but the playback wasn't working, probably because my internet can play up in bad weather, as I live rural.
I think that ,to fill the gap, ITV should remake Non-Series novels WITHOUT Miss Marple.:-O What a thought! Also, I recommend 'Midsomer Murders' to you. It is more obvious than Agatha's mysteries, and the deaths are crazy, but there are a few good episodes. I recommend "Picture of Innocence" and "They Seek Him Here".
I quite like the Agatha Christie Hour, although I've not yet seen them all. So non series short stories are also an option.
I think it's unlikely that something like Why Didn't They Ask Evan be filmed by in it's own right, so soon after the Marple version. Which is annoying, but another channel could commission Christie works. I was looking forward to Crooked house being made into a film, but whatever happened to it?
Nothing can replace Poirot, so I'll have to simply watch repeats of it! I wonder what the most loved episode is? I love Affair At The Victory Ball in the short and ABC Murders in the full length.
A very faithful TV adaptation of Why Didn't They Ask Evans? was released in 1980. The movie version of Crooked House is still in the works, but it looks like the originally announced cast is no longer attached.
Was Labours of Hercules close to the book? Many years since I read it but remember it as 12 short stories. Enjoyed the TV Poirot adaptation - although was confused for a lot of it.
I enjoyed this new one very much, I think mainly because the necessity of a largely fabricated plot when compared with the short stories meant I wasn't worrying about the makers bollixing up a good novel. A mini-series back in the nineties would have been preferable, though.
One of the best (perhaps second only to "After The Funeral") of the post-2000 episodes, in spite of the poor backdrops which were very distracting - how low would the production values have sunk in say, five years' time? The casting was excellent and the episode did manage to build up the suspense (I paused it for half an hour at the start and fast-forwarded through the mood-killing ad breaks) and the reveal of the villain was quite satisfying. Didn't stop me waking up the next day with a head full of plot holes big enough to drive the Orient Express through, though. But it compared very favourably with the snooze-fest that was "Dead Man's Folly" last week (I wasn't expecting the guilty pleasure that is the Ustinov version to come out on top) and I am now much less apprehensive about watching "Curtain" this week.
I was surprised to find myself enjoying an adaptation that in effect crafted a new mystery for Poirot. I think 'made-up' episodes would have be preferable to a continuation of the book series in novel form (in theory, at least). I can accept 'new' adventures when it's 'just' television, although woe betide any screenwriter who takes liberties with the sacred texts simply to tick the 'equality and diversity' boxes, as seemed to happen a lot in the last ten years. It's a bit late for new episodes now, though :-S - shame they didn't attempt an adaptation of "Black Coffee" - then we really would have had Christie's complete Poirot.
My recording of Labours didn't come out again. Simply to do with my TV signal. I will have to catch up. I absolutely adore the book, so if there are any major changes I will not be happy.
I finally got round to watching Labours Of Hercules. To say I was disappointed would be a huge underestimate of the feelings I had.
SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK AND ADAPTATION!!!
I knew that converting 12 fairly long short stories into one was going to be difficult. But the adaption had barley any resemblance to the book. The book's stories have different tones, some are light and humorous, others romantic, or tense with plot twists. The episode mainly concentrated on the story I found the least interesting The Erymanthian Boar.
10 minutes into LOH I realized this is going to be one of those episodes that has Poirot looking sad and pensive in darkened rooms.
Similar in tone to Third girl and Taken At The flood (my most hated episode) it concentrated on violence and blood. As for the 12 Labours, only 4 were partly included. Poirot's reunion with Countess Rossakoff was somehow a let down. She had more spirit than in the Double Clue episodes. But also a slightly shaky Russian accent. Her son was switched to a daughter Alice, who seemed to be remarkably English.
I soon worked out that, yes Alice was behind the whole murders, including having people's internal organs removed. No that wasn't in the book! The most interesting characters such as Amy Carnaby weren't included. The whole episode was a bleak affair that I found difficult to watch. The usually tired scene where Poirot gathers everyone together only served to infuriate me. It was long, drawn out. The fact practically everyone pulling out a gun at the end made no difference. It was boring!
I agree with @SeaSnap that ITV should remake Non-Series novels without Miss Marple. I have never been a fan of having Miss Marple inserted into Non-Series novels although I understand ITV do it for commercial reasons.
ITVs Labours of Hercules it seemed to me had only symbolic references to each story title or so it seemed to me anyway, ITV would have been better off doing them before they started doing the Novels and they should have been done in Hour-long Adaptations.
I would love to see ITV re-do the ones ITV put Miss Marple in where she shouldn't be, but that won't happen, It wouldn't be Commercially viable and lets face it ITV are a Commercial Channel and care about profit more than quality and also ITV have lost the rights to Christie's work, all we can hope for is that after The BBC have done ATTWN and Tommy and Tuppence they do the Non-series books that ITV did and didn't do, maybe we will have another Poirot and another Miss Marple, That would be Lovely I think, even better The BBC might cast someone to do the Battle Books
You are so lucky that you're able to watch those last episodes! Here in Belgium we can watch this week a few episodes with Hercule Poirot ( The veiled lady, The Cornish Mystery, The Lost Mine...) I do hope I can soon watch the last episodes, looking forward to it!
Comments
ENJOY!!
I think that ,to fill the gap, ITV should remake Non-Series novels WITHOUT Miss Marple.:-O What a thought! Also, I recommend 'Midsomer Murders' to you. It is more obvious than Agatha's mysteries, and the deaths are crazy, but there are a few good episodes. I recommend "Picture of Innocence" and "They Seek Him Here".
I enjoyed this new one very much, I think mainly because the necessity of a largely fabricated plot when compared with the short stories meant I wasn't worrying about the makers bollixing up a good novel. A mini-series back in the nineties would have been preferable, though.
One of the best (perhaps second only to "After The Funeral") of the post-2000 episodes, in spite of the poor backdrops which were very distracting - how low would the production values have sunk in say, five years' time? The casting was excellent and the episode did manage to build up the suspense (I paused it for half an hour at the start and fast-forwarded through the mood-killing ad breaks) and the reveal of the villain was quite satisfying. Didn't stop me waking up the next day with a head full of plot holes big enough to drive the Orient Express through, though. But it compared very favourably with the snooze-fest that was "Dead Man's Folly" last week (I wasn't expecting the guilty pleasure that is the Ustinov version to come out on top) and I am now much less apprehensive about watching "Curtain" this week.
I was surprised to find myself enjoying an adaptation that in effect crafted a new mystery for Poirot. I think 'made-up' episodes would have be preferable to a continuation of the book series in novel form (in theory, at least). I can accept 'new' adventures when it's 'just' television, although woe betide any screenwriter who takes liberties with the sacred texts simply to tick the 'equality and diversity' boxes, as seemed to happen a lot in the last ten years. It's a bit late for new episodes now, though :-S - shame they didn't attempt an adaptation of "Black Coffee" - then we really would have had Christie's complete Poirot.
ITVs Labours of Hercules it seemed to me had only symbolic references to each story title or so it seemed to me anyway, ITV would have been better off doing them before they started doing the Novels and they should have been done in Hour-long Adaptations.
I would love to see ITV re-do the ones ITV put Miss Marple in where she shouldn't be, but that won't happen, It wouldn't be Commercially viable and lets face it ITV are a Commercial Channel and care about profit more than quality and also ITV have lost the rights to Christie's work, all we can hope for is that after The BBC have done ATTWN and Tommy and Tuppence they do the Non-series books that ITV did and didn't do, maybe we will have another Poirot and another Miss Marple, That would be Lovely I think, even better The BBC might cast someone to do the Battle Books