Le cheval pâle d'Agatha Christie

I was really enjoying this until the very end. I didn't understand the ending and even reading the BBC's dissection on what it all meant left me none the wiser. I feel as if I wasted valuable TV time :-(

There seems to be a need these days to take classic works by the likes of Bram Stoker and in this instance, Agatha Christie and re-write them. Or to put it another way, in my opinion, "stuff them up".

For me, the maxim "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applies and The Pale Horse is no exception. To start with you have a male hero, who can't be a hero, without first being a villain. The original hero of the piece is re-written as a scoundrel and a womaniser. Why this is the case I can only guess at but its a lame ploy.

The rest of the story fares little better, skewing the tale away from an intriguing murder mystery, towards a rather jaded tale of sexual infidelity and secrets.

On the plus side the acting is decent and the visuals are creepily eerie. That said, once again, the price of tinkering with something that works just fine is an off balance tale, that fails to resonate.

5/10.

Once again Phelps thinks she knows better than Dame Agatha Christie, if she feels the need to re-write her plots just remove Christie's name from the title. As others have said it's creepy and attractive to look at, but go past the visuals and you'll find pretty poor story telling. I had expected Death comes as the end to be the next production, that would have been interesting as it has never been made for television. This is one of Christie's later books, it has a chilling core, I fear that in each of the Television adaptations, that grit has been missed. It's better than the dreadful mash up of The ABC Murders from last year.

It's so exhausting watching Agatha Christie adaptations that literally should not legally be called an adaptation. The storyline was trash and nothing to do with the book. Other than it contained a great cast and visually was shot well, this is a must miss.

Sigh. The screenwriter simply doesn't understand Agatha Christie and she's murdering the originals. The Pale Horse, The ABC Murders, Witness for the Prosecution, And Then There Were None - they all miss the point completely.

You know who understood Christie perfectly? Rian Johnson. His "Knives Out" is exactly like an Agatha Christie novel. He even captured the essence of Poirot, something Murder on the Orient Express could not. See, Poirot is not about the fact that he's Belgian, or bald or has a mustache. It's that the others perceive him as weird, and pompous, and even clueless, things Daniel Craig & Rian Johnson understood perfectly.

Agatha Christie was never gross. She was never obvious. She was witty, clever and cultivated. Her social commentary is subtle. She knew how to allude without shouting it. She knew how to misled, how to create an atmosphere. She could make you suspect everyone and noone at the same time.

Sarah Phelps' adaptations are like crayon copies of Renaissance paintings. You may recognize the subject but it'll never leave a lasting impression.