The Pale Horse

Butcher job on Agatha Christie story and a lackluster cast make this nearly unwatchable. The period detail also seems wrong with all that late 1960s clothes and hair.

Rufus Sewell and Rita Tushingham are the only recognizable stars in this mess. Most of the others should have stayed in acting classes a little longer. Especially awful is the woman paying Hermia.

Casting is suspect also in having Sewell married to a Black woman in 1960 London, let along a Black witch living with two white women in Much Deeping.

The whole witchy woman thing vs the usual Christie poisoning plot turns into a total muddle and makes the un-Christie ending really stupid. Oh yes, and cut the F bombs. They added absolutely nothing to the proceedings.

I did, however, like the car Sewell drives.

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.

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.

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 :-(

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.