The Mystery of the Blue Train

I must acknowledge that when you watch this, having read the book, you will definitely be struck by the amount of changes that were made, but in all fairness it wasn't one of The Great Dame's finest works, it paled into comparison against the other train set mystery.

The story adaptation is good I thought, the story is well paced, and it features some nice characters. The story is quite dark, with some tragic themes.

My main gripe is with some of the characters, I don't think I've ever said that before about a Poirot, Lindsay Duncan plays Lady Tamplin like Eddie's long lost sister from Absolutely Fabulous, Jaime Murray's Ruth Kettering is rather poor, and even Elliot Gould I found a little off. Thank goodness for Josette Simon, who I thought was fantastic, so Charismatic, she stood out.

The direction was fine, the location work terrific. It's good, just doesn't shine like the others in this series do. 7/10

Screening well over a year since the previous episode (The Hollow), Mystery of the Blue Train was the New Year offering that opens season 10 ahead of the remaining episodes all coming at the end of Q2 and start of Q3 in 2006. Boxsetting the series as I am, it is odd to think of it being so fragmented like this, but this was a time when it became more of event-television for ITV. This opening episode perhaps did not sit well with me because I did not give it those 15 or so months between episodes, but rather only a day or so after finishing season 9, I watched this one. The main impact for me was that the very nicely staged and presented episode of The Hollow, made the more frantic direction of Blue Train strike me as odd and rather alienating.

I shouldn't really be talking about the presentation before the content, but I did find it to be too different from the style that I have come to prefer. Here we have too many odd camera angles, a bit too much swapping of focal points, and a generally busier presentation that I would have liked; the editing adds to this feeling and I did spend much of the episode wondering if all of season 10 will play out like this – and also thinking about what other shows may have influenced this sudden change in approach (some others here reference NYPD Blue and the like, and to be fair there may be something in that).

The mystery itself I found lacking in urgency and, in some ways, clarity; perhaps this was just me not following it, but it was not one that really drew me in as many other episodes have done. The cast are maybe part of this as they are surprisingly so-so. Suchet himself is as good as he generally is in this role, however the supporting cast fare better on paper than in reality. Gould is a big name but seems unsure of his character and unable to really sell it; D'Arcy, Eve, Farrell, and others are fine but nothing great – none of them really hooking me into the episode. All told it does the norms, and provides a familiar enough frame for the lazy viewer such as I to fall into, however it didn't draw me in, nor really spark with mystery or intrigue – something not helped one bit by the direction, which really didn't fit in the series.

Of course, this isn't the first time Poirot is on a train where someone is murdered. "The Mystery of the Blue Train" is from season 10 and stars David Suchet as Poirot, Elliot Gould, Lindsay Duncan, Bronagh Gallagher, and James D'Arcy.

In this episode, Poirot works to solve the murder of Ruth Kettering, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. She is beaten literally beyond recognition. Added to this, in order to be closer to her lover, she changed rooms with Katherine Grey, a new heiress whom Poirot has befriended. Ruth owned the brilliant Heart of Fire ruby, which is now missing - but the safe wasn't broken into. When Grey visits her relatives, she is attacked, raising the question - did the killer have the right woman? There's gambling, adultery, broke relatives and resentment as Poirot investigates the suspects further. Lindsay Duncan as Gray's suddenly attentive cousin (she's broke) is fantastic. I had the pleasure of seeing her in person in "Private Lives," and she is a wonderful actress. Suchet as usual is the perfect Poirot. I also had the privilege of seeing him in person in "Amadeus." He truly is a chameleon. Georgina Rylance is also excellent as Katherine Gray, an insecure young woman who's just inherited a fortune and now socializes with a different class of people.

The rest of the acting, frankly, wasn't fabulous - you could spot the fake American accents right away and the characters seemed put on rather than the real thing. It might have been the dialogue, it might have been the directing - I tend to think it was the latter.

I don't remember this book, so I didn't mind whatever changes there were. I enjoyed the story.

At 53 minutes on streaming, captions say Duke Ellington. It is Sing Sing Sing, Benny Goodman's famous recording from 1937. I kept feeling confused during this episode. But the train and the beautiful scenery in Nice make it memorable. I would have liked to know more about the history of the ruby. I tried to put myself in Katherine's shoes and I don't know if I would so easily fallen in with Poirot as a companion. I'm also surprised at the French police giving Poirot the lead in the investigation. There are a lot of good actors in this episode, so many I felt like it was being set up as Orient Express lite.

Camera work here is so terribly distracting one must focus on the plot intensely to follow Poirot as he unravels this mystery. Casting the horrid likes of elliot gould make matters worse, as he hams it up unmercifully. Backlit scenes, blurry visuals, one wonders what in the Wide World of Mystery were they going for...