Rating summary
Movie | | 4.5 |
Video | | 4.0 |
Audio | | 4.0 |
Extras | | 2.5 |
Overall | | 4.5 |
Poirot: Series 10 Blu-ray Movie Review
"They lied very well. They are all performers."
Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 13, 2013
Almost another two years passed after Series 9
concluded with The Hollow before Poirot once
again met his public on New Year's Day 2006 with The Mystery of the Blue Train, a particularly
elaborate and star-studded production shot in both England and the south of France. The lines of
aging were beginning to show in actor David Suchet's face, although his performance had lost
none of its vigor, and an obvious decision was made to let those same lines show through
Poirot's paint and powder. Even though the famous detective had found retirement impossible (in
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), his
constant engagement with the blackest of human motives
continued to take its toll, and his uncompromising morality has exacted a cost. "The journey of
life can be hard for those of us who travel alone", he says to a suspect during an interview, in a
rare moment of self-revelation. Of course, being Poirot, he is also saying it to see how the suspect
reacts.
The creative team that assumed control with Series 9 continued their stylistic experiments and
took even greater creative liberties with the text of Christie's novels. The results are some of the
liveliest and most contemporary entries of the series, although Christie purists will have to check
their expectations at the door. For all the impressive period detail, this is Poirot for the television
audience of the 21st Century. Agatha Christie was a populist entertainer. She may have preferred
to set her novels in drawing rooms and stately mansions, but she wrote for a general audience.
The creative team behind Poirot proceeded in that spirit.
The Mystery of the Blue Train (disc 1) (first broadcast: Jan. 1, 2006, U.K.)
The Mystery of the Blue Train was a novel over which Agatha Christie is known to have
struggled, and it remained one of her least favorite. It seems only appropriate, then, that TV
adapter Guy Andrew took major liberties with the plot for this special New Year's Day
presentation, adding characters and subplots and expanding the scenery into the kind of
extravaganza that required location shooting in France and major effects in post-production. The
canvas became so big that even identifying the murder victim here would be unfair to first-time
viewers, because there are several good candidates.
Blue Train could be described as the story of two young women who board Le Train Bleu from
Calais to the French Riviera, and then, for contrived reasons, switch compartments. The first
young woman is Katherine Grey (Georgina Rylance), an impoverished American who has just
come into an unexpected inheritance. Poirot rescues Katherine at a restaurant prior to departure
when she is befuddled by the waiter's ceremonial opening of a wine bottle and pouring of a
sample to taste. They become friends, and she asks the genial Belgian to tutor her in the customs
of gracious living, a commission that Poirot is only too pleased to accept. Katherine's distant and
penniless relatives are already descending upon her in the person of the pretentious Lady Tamplin
(Lindsay Duncan), her useless (and much younger) fourth husband Corky (Tom Harper) and
her equally useless daughter Lenox (Alice Eve, most recently seen as Dr. Marcus in
Star Trek:
Into Darkness).
The second young woman has always had money. Her name is Ruth (Jaime Murray, the crazed
love interest in
Season 2 of
Dexter),
and she is the daughter of American oil baron Rufus Van
Aldin (Elliott Gould). Ruth has a feckless husband named Derek Ketterling (James D'Arcy) from
whom she's running away and who refuses to give her a divorce, despite inducements offered by
her father and his right-hand man, Major Knighton (Nicholas Farrell). Ruth also has a lover
named La Roche (Oliver Milburn), who is a passenger on the Blue Train. And she is traveling
with a fabulous ruby named "the Heart of Fire" that her indulgent father acquired specially for
her; she and her maid, Ada Mason (Bronagh Gallagher), keep it under lock and key.
It turns out that Katherine Grey and Ruth Van Aldin a/k/a Mrs. Ketterling have a connection.
Years earlier, Ruth's wealthy father acquired the business of Katherine's father and ruined him in
the process. When Katherine learns that Ruth is a Van Aldin, her entire expression darkens. The
Van Aldins ruined her life, she tells Poirot.
Also on the Blue Train is a mysterious Anglo-African woman of elegant attire and regal bearing,
who says very little but has the air of someone well-informed (Josette Simon). Who she is, and
why she is aboard, will remain unknown until late in the episode.
Unlike the more famous
Murder on the
Orient Express, where Poirot's investigation remains on
the train, this one happens after the Blue Train arrives at its destination, where Poirot has the
assistance of a a local French policeman, Inspector Caux (Roger Lloyd-Pack). Poirot does
mention, though, that he would very much like to ride the Orient Express someday.
Cards on the Table (disc 1) (first broadcast: Mar. 19, 2006, U.K.)
Poirot is accustomed to murderers who plan their crimes with care, but a victim who plans his
own murder? That's something new. Poirot is invited to an unusual evening's entertainment by
one of the world's wealthiest men, the mysterious and sinister Mr. Shaitana (played with
insinuating theatricality by Alexander Siddig, best known as Dr. Julian Bashir on
Star Trek:
DS9).
The guest list consists of four sleuths and four suspected killers. During dinner, Shaitana engages
in a theoretical discussion of murder, dropping broad hints suggesting to one or more of the
suspected killers that he knows their secret. Then he leads the sleuths and the suspects to card
tables in separate rooms and leaves them to play bridge, while he relaxes by the fire and waits to
see what happens. By the end of the evening, Shaitana is dead, quietly stabbed through the heart.
It is up to Poirot and the three sleuths to identify the killer.
Poirot's three companions are a colorful bunch. Supt. Wheeler (David Westhead) is a top cop at
Scotland Yard, although he has a skeleton or two in his closet. Colonel Hughes (Robert Pugh) is
in the Secret Service, although neither he nor his friend Poirot would ever say so. The fourth
sleuth is an eccentric crime novelist named Ariadne Oliver (Zoë Wanamaker), who chatters
incessantly and is full of outlandish theories. Mrs. Oliver is thought to be a satirical self-portrait
of Christie herself, and she becomes a recurring character in the later Poirot stories.
The four suspects are a jocular physician, Dr. Roberts (Alex Jennings); an explorer, Major
Despard (Tristan Gemmill); a widow, Mrs. Lorrimar (Lesley Manville), who is an expert bridge
player; and a shy young woman named Anne Meredith, who lives in the country (Ariadne Oliver
calls her "a country mouse"). As the four investigators look into each of their backgrounds,
suspicious circumstances are revealed. Each had left the bridge table during Shaitana's social
event, providing an opportunity to stab him. But Poirot, true to his method, insists that
psychology is the key to unraveling the killer's identity.
Foyle's War star Honeysuckle Weeks
appears as Rhoda Dawes, Anne Meredith's housemate and
best friend since school, who may hold the key to her mysterious past (and maybe more than
that). The adaptation by Nick Dear (who also wrote
The Hollow and would write four future
episodes of
Poirot) makes several major changes to the novel, but the essential murder plot
remains the same.
After the Funeral (disc 2) (first broadcast: Mar. 26, 2006, U.K.)
Poirot is hustled down to Enderby Hall by his friend, Gilbert Entwhistle (Robert Bathurst),
solicitor to the family of the recently deceased Richard Abernethie (John Carson, in flashbacks).
Immediately following the funeral (which, contrary to English custom, concluded with cremation
rather than burial), Entwhistle gathered the family for a reading of the will. Several startling
events occurred.
First, there was the bizarre outburst by a member of the family that Richard had been murdered.
Next came the will itself, a new one prepared while Entwhistle was away on holiday. Contrary to
all expectation, Richard Abernethie had disinherited his favorite nephew, George (Michael
Fassbender), dividing his estate equally among George's mother, Helen (Geraldine James); two
nieces, one of them devoted to charitable works, Susannah Henderson (Lucy Punch), the other,
Rosamund Shane (Fiona Glascott), devoted to her theatrical career and that of her husband;
Richard's sickly surviving brother, Timothy (Benjamin Whitrow); and his eccentric sister, Cora
Gallaccio, who had been cut off from the family decades earlier for running off with an Italian
painter. But the next morning, Cora's live-in companion, Miss Gilchrist (Monica Dolan), finds
Cora hacked to death in her bed. Their cottage contained nothing of value, as Cora merely
dabbled in painting and collected art at auctions and shops.
Poirot has much to sort through. Why did Richard Abernethie suddenly change his mind about
George, and why did Cora Gallaccio have to be silenced so swiftly after her brother's death?
Poirot asks these questions, but he asks others as well. Before he is done, another individual has
been poisoned, and many dreadful secrets of the Abernethie family have been revealed, along
with the murderer.
Taken at the Flood (disc 2) (first broadcast: Apr. 2, 2006, U.K.)
The title comes from Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which
taken at the flood leads on to fortune" (Act IV, scene iii). Recall that
Julius Caesar was a
tragedy. In Guy Andrews' screen adaptation, one of Christie's blackest stories turns even darker.
At a gentleman's club in London, Poirot hears the story of the Cloade family from Major Porter
(Nicholas Le Prevost). Two years ago, the Major was badly injured and has since been confined
to a wheelchair when Gordon Cloade's London house exploded from a gas leak just as the family
was arriving for a dinner party. Thirteen people inside the house were killed, including Gordon,
who was the head of the family, but his new young wife, Rosaleen (Eva Birthistle), survived,
along with her brother, David Hunter (Elliot Cowan). Rosaleen inherited all of Gordon's wealth,
which proved a major inconvenience for the rest of the family, who were dependent on Gordon's
support. Thoroughly under David's control, Rosaleen has refused to extend any financial aid, and
all the Cloades are now broke.
(Like all of the
Poirot episodes,
Taken at the Flood has been set at an indefinite time in the
1930s, whereas Christie's novel was set shortly after World War II, when the Cloades' straitened
circumstances could be explained by the state of the British economy. For the TV adaptation,
various bad investment decisions and personal habits are used instead.)
Lynn Marchmont (Amanda Douge), daughter of the late Gordon Cloade's sister, Adela
Marchmont (Jenny Agutter), has recently returned from years of missionary work in Africa. She
was long ago betrothed to her cousin, Rowley (Patrick Baladi), but now finds herself strangely
attracted to David Hunter, despite the fact that her entire family loathes him. Poirot, who was a
friend of Lynn's father and has corresponded with her throughout her time in Africa, is
concerned for her future, and he has a chance to observe the family more closely when they retain
his services to investigate the widow Rosaleen. She was previously married before catching the
eye of Gordon Cloade, and some members of the Cloade family are not convinced that her first
husband, a Robert Underhay, is actually dead as she and her brother claim.
As if on cue, a blackmailer calling himself Enoch Arden (Tim Woodward) appears at the country
inn where Poirot is also staying and threatens David Hunter with revealing the whereabouts of
Robert Underhay unless David pays 20,000 pounds. With the inevitable logic of a
Poirot story,
Mr. Arden is soon found bludgeoned to death in his room, and Major Porter, who is brought up
from London, identifies him as, in fact, Robert Underhay. Meanwhile, Rosaleen Cloade
steadfastly maintains that this was
not her first husband. As far as the local police superintendent
(Richard Hope) is concerned, David Hunter is the most likely suspect, but he has a solid
alibi—he was with Lynn Marchmont at the time.
Poirot has more to disentangle than even this sketch indicates. In the end, he promises that
"Poirot shall produce a murderer of whose viciousness he stands in awe!" As always, he keeps
his promise.
Taken at the Flood is notable for the pivotal role played by Poirot's Catholic faith in the
investigation, an element not present in Christie's original novel (although Catholic nuns are a
recurring motif in
After the Funeral). The introduction of this theme anticipates the major
religious and spiritual debates of
Series 12's adaptation of
Murder on the Orient Express
, which generated considerable controversy for its deviation from Christie's text.
Poirot: Series 10 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
In what is a first in my experience of reviewing Poirot on Blu-ray, there is a noticeable variation
among the quality of the episodes in Series 10. The difference may result from various shooting
styles, given that each episode had a different director and cinematographer. None of the
episodes look bad by any means, and certainly none of them exhibit the problems that plagued
the whole of Series 7 & 8, but the variable
quality was obvious in viewing these two 1080p,
AVC-encoded Blu-rays.
Cards on the Table is the weakest of the four, with the softest and least detailed image and
noticeable grain. "Least detailed" in this context still means that the image has enough detail to
allow appreciation of Mr. Shaitana's ornate residence, where the first half of the episode is set,
and of the various suspects' homes and places of work, where subsequent interviews occur. The
blacks of the gentlemen's evening wear are solid, and the colors are vibrant and saturated.
The remaining three episodes in Series 10 are all significantly sharper and more detailed, with
After the Funeral taking top honors, followed closely by Taken at the Flood and The Mystery of
the Blue Train. All three have finely resolved images with little or no noise, lively and varied
palettes, good blacks and well-adjusted contrast. On the whole, Series 10 maintains the standards
sets by Acorn's early releases of Poirot, but ever since the show entered the era where the A&E
Network acted as co-producer, the video quality of Acorn's releases cannot be assumed.
Poirot: Series 10 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
Lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 remains Acorn Media's new audio standard for Poirot, and the stereo
sound mixes for these four episodes are consistent with prior episodes under the new regime.
Certain key sound effects (notably, the train engine, whistles and wheels in The Mystery of the
Blue Train) are more prominent than the usual sound editing, but dialogue still has priority. With
Series 10, scoring duties were taken over by Stephen McKeon (Primeval), who provided a more lush orchestral presence that at times recalls the elegiac tone of the late John Barry.
Poirot: Series 10 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
- Behind the Scenes (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 45:36): Narrated by Tony Wilson, this
unusually detailed "making of" documentary features on-set footage from all four
episodes in Series 10. It includes interviews with actor David Suchet, as well as numerous
guest stars and various personnel behind the camera, including producer Trevor Hopkins.
Caution: Spoilers galore.
- Photo Gallery (1080p; 2:31).
- Trailers: At startup, disc 1 plays the usual trailer for Acorn Media, plus a trailer for Dirk
Gently.
Poirot: Series 10 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
In the Behind the Scenes documentary for Series 10, David Suchet says that he enjoyed filming it
more than any to date. Ironically, it contains some of the darkest tales and most evil villains to
have appeared in Poirot so far. The great detective's revelations of the murderer have begun to
take on an angrier tone. Since he could not manage to stay retired, Poirot's only option when
confronted with the boundless human capacity for evil is condemn it. "If God should withhold
His mercy from anyone on Earth, it surely will be you", he thunders at one killer he has exposed.
For a brief moment, he sounds more like an Old Testament prophet than a detective. Highly
recommended.