MINISERIES PREMIERE: Today Amazon Prime Video presents the latest labor of Hercule – Hercule Poirot, the observant detective famous from a series of mystery novels written by genre
grande dame Agatha Christie. David Suchet commandeered the role of Poirot by playing him, over a long stretch of years, in a PBS series covering every Poirot story in the canon. The last of those, though, was five years ago, and now it’s time for a new Poirot, played – and played very well – by John Malkovich, whose approach is as sport of a tragic yet noble figure, long past his prime but still great at the crime-solving game. This three-part, movie-length feature is a new dramatization of
The ABC Murders, in which Poirot is goaded by a killer who writes him letters in advance, threatening to kill at random by selecting victims alphabetically. This new adaptation is written by executive producer Sarah Phelps, who’s recently given us some very entertaining new takes on other, non-Poirot Agatha Christie stories, such as
The Witness for the Prosecution and
And Then There Were None. For a full review from TVWW, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower. And for my full review on NPR’s
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, listen today, or, later this afternoon,
visit the Fresh Air website.