The Third Floor Flat

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!

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.

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

Hercule Poirot doesn't feel too good this morning: a) he has a cold, and b) no new cases have come his way in the past few weeks. He even picks the wrong murderer in a theatrical murder mystery that his friend Captain Hastings takes him to (though he insists that the writer of the play cheated the audience). But all that is about to change when a real murder happens - in an apartment just 2 floors below his own, no less!

Featuring fluid camera-work that immediately establishes the setting (3rd floor: the murder victim, 4th floor: the people who find the body, 5th floor: Poirot), a typically clever script (when Poirot, back in form and obviously pleased with himself, says "And now, I know everything!", few viewers will be prepared for his revelations), fine acting, and even some suspense at the end AFTER the culprit has been revealed, this early entry into the Poirot series is a good solid whodunit. (***)

Hercule is bored - no cases for the little grey cells. Furthermore he is sick with a cold, and this is making him cranky. He becomes even more cranky after watching a murder-mystery play, and finding the plot sub-par. On returning from the play, however, he discovers that his newly-arrived upstairs neighbour has been murdered. Poirot quickly sets to work in solving who did it.

Overly simple, making this one of the worst Poirot episodes. The murderer is revealed in double-quick time, leaving the remainder of the episode an action drama rather than a murder mystery. Very basic plot, and the murderer is fairly obvious.

There are one or two sub-plots which do add some colour to what would otherwise be a fairly dull affair: Hastings and his car, Poirot and his cold. Not enough to save the episode, however.