The Third Floor Flat

I have been a fan of Agatha Christie and Poirot for nearly a decade now. The Third Floor Flat has everything I love about the series in the first place. It is classily made, with splendid photography and scenery, and the music as always is hauntingly beautiful. The script is both clever and witty, and the story is one of the more simpler, more suspenseful and more compelling story lines of the entire series with so much happening and solved in such a short running time. The acting is as great as ever, with the four leads superb especially the definitive Poirot of David Suchet.

All in all, one of the best Poirots as well one of the better short story adaptations(third only perhaps to Wasp's Nest and The Chocolate Box). 9/10 Bethany Cox

Dumb waiter to wrong floor--find body.

Very sneaky poirot engine should NOT have been steaming at end.

In "The Third Floor Flat", a downstairs neighbor of Poirot's is found murdered. How they found it is most unusual. The woman in the floor above cannot find her key and her boyfriend and his friend use the dumb waiter system in the apartment building to try to get into her apartment. But they end up in a different one...the one below. There, they discover a dead body...an obvious murder victim. While Scotland Yard is out looking for the wrong killer, Poirot and his friends solve the crime and show that one of the folks involved is NOT who they say they are.

This is a very tightly written and interesting episode. Well worth seeing and I appreciate how it's a bit shorter than some episodes...but that suits the story well.

To take Poirot's mind off the fact that he has no case and his little grey cells are atrophying, Hastings takes him to the theater to see a mystery play. Poirot guesses the wrong murderer and then complains the audience wasn't given all the facts.

When they arrive home, they find out that there has been a murder two floors down, of a young woman who just moved in. The two women who lived in the same apartment line did not have their keys, and their dates go down the fire escape, but climb in the wrong window and find the body.

Strangely, the woman had left a note for one of the women in the other apartment wanting to speak with her.

Poirot works with Inspector Japp to attempt to figure out who killed this woman, and why.

Delightful mystery, with Poirot and Hastings in good form and interacting with people in the building, which one doesn't see much. Poirot also shows a lack of detachment when it comes to one of the neighbors -- he finds her lovely, and picks up that one of the men is in love with her, although she's engaged to someone else. Sweet as well as touching.

Very entertaining, and a good mystery.

Once again the episode is distinguished by the "padding": the various extra touches added by the writers to fill out the structure of the original story. And a clever story it is: Poirot finds that the charming young lady who lives directly below him has lost the key to her apartment. Her boyfriend and his buddy decide to break in via the small elevator used to deliver coal to the kitchen. But they accidentally enter the wrong kitchen and discover a dead body. Can Poirot and Hastings figure out who killed the woman who lived in the third floor flat? The short answer, not surprisingly, is yes, and in very quick order too. But beyond that are the clever little touches: the fact that Poirot, having caught a cold, is being more petulant than usual, the wager he makes with Hastings over the solution to a murder mystery play, and Hastings' distress over the very unfortunate result when the murderer tries to make his escape. Best line of the evening: "He'll need a whole new front end." Ce pauvre Hastings!

Poirot is not in high spirits, a combination of man flu and no cases. To raise his spirits Hastings takes Poirot to the Theatre to watch a murder mystery. Whilst at the Theatre a murder occurs at Whitehaven Mansions, it's new resident Ernestine Grant, who's body is accidentally discovered by fellow Theatre goers Jimmy and Donovan, friends of Poirot's neighbour Miss Matthews. Fortnunately Poirot's grey cells are on hand to clear up the mystery.

It's an excellent episode, one of the best of the early ones. It is an ultra smart looking episodes, the Theatre scenes look wonderfully authentic, clothes and costumes throughout look super smart, it boasts a wonderful attention to detail. It's a very different episode, Poirot deduces the killer's identity swiftly, it's more about how to physically catch the killer then the solving of the crime.

Lots of fun too, I love Poirot's grumblings about his cold, it's a lighthearted start to the episode.

The acting is up to the usual high standard. I did enjoy the appearance, albeit brief one from Josie Lawrence, nice to see her cast in a different kind of role for her.

8/10