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 :-(

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.

An unpleasant man does unpleasant things to his unpleasant friends and unpleasant acquaintances, who do unpleasant things back to him, possibly for all eternity.

There is no doubt an audience for this very classy, well-made and well-acted soap opera, consisting of people who think the world unpleasant and like to have their noses rubbed in it. There are such people, and they deserve to be entertained as much as the rest of us do.

However, viewers should be aware that, though it borrows Agatha Christie's title, her characters, and several plot elements, this bears no more than a superficial resemblance to Christie's novel, but free-rides on Christie's reputation, presumably in order to boost its viewing figures. I can think of no other reason for it to pose as a Christie adaptation.

First part was promising something very good but then part two.. I am quite unsatisfied by the ending.

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.