Miss Marple: Nemesis

Once again we are asked to delve into another McEwan/Marple/Christie murder mystery. Except that it isn't a Christie murder mystery. Only the name remains the same to trap unwary viewers. The real mystery is why the trustees of Dame Agatha's estate ever allowed this series to be made by disrespectful butchers. Only "A Murder is Announced" retained some faithful semblance of the original novels.

All filmed interpretations have taken some artistic licence with Christie's mysteries over the years, which is perfectly acceptable to most Christie fans, but none except this Marple series (and the Tony Randall ABC effort) have turned them into unrecognisable farces. And that is most definitely not acceptable. In the various episodes of McEwen/Marple we've been offered, by way of change to the originals, everything including different characters, different plots, different victims, different culprits, added murders, etc., etc., etc., and of course inclusions of Jane Marple into stories in which she was never intended to appear.

"Nemesis" is the last episode in which Geraldine McEwan dons the mantle of the elderly yet intrepid needle-clicking sleuth (we may, I think, be thankful for the omission of "A Caribbean Mystery"), and it once again takes Dame Agatha's wonderful original tale apart, and reconstitutes it into one that makes little sense, logic, or reason, adds, deletes, and changes characters, presents new plot lines and a new conclusion.

I can't detrimentally criticise the performances, I would be wrong to do so, but when a drama is billed as being based on an Agatha Christie novel I expect it to be, and expect to see, just that. Not something that is haphazardly jumbled together by an inferior hack.

If you have read the novel, you will be just shocked at all the radical plot changes which have been made for no good reason whatever. The central characters now include nuns and a Luftwaffe pilot and a WWII-injured officer; the settings have been altered to the same degree. These changes do not make the story more interesting or more suspenseful, but rather more cluttered and silly and labored. The 1987 version stayed much closer to the book (and had more running time to play with) and was, consequently, much better. Why, why did the writers do this? Why? Well, suppose you haven't read the book or seen the 1987 version and are coming to this show cold. I suppose you could do worse with your time. But really the "melodramatic" clutter and the additional silly subplot elements that have been thrown in put this sort of on the same level of, well, a "Colombo" episode. And not one of the classic ones either.

I did think this was a poor adaptation of the book by Agatha Christie, and I did think it is one of the weaker Marple adaptations. Honestly, sorry but the Joan Hickson version was much better. There is some very nice period detail and some lovely camera-work and costumes, there is some nice music and the supporting performances from Amanda Burton, George Cole and Richard E.Grant were fine. And you are left asking questions throughout, like a whodunit expects you to. However, the story was a mess, it bears little resemblance to the original story, and most of the plot changes were unnecessary. Also I have never quite been convinced by Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, she just isn't my idea of the character. Miss Marple is very clever and very wise, not fussy. That is the main reason why I keep saying see the Joan Hickson versions instead, because Hickson was born for Miss Marple, and her interpretation was the truest to the Marple in the book. The script was quite poor, even for an Agatha Christie adaptation,the pacing was off and I am the only one probably who found the final solution confusing, and there was a lot of overacting going on in some parts. Overall, very disappointing, could have been so much better. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Having re-watched and re read my review of the 1987 version (or as I call it the proper one) I thought it about time I reviewed this. I stated back in 2007 that I couldn't wait to see this one, oh that hope. I had totally loved Geraldine as Miss M, there was definitely a little twinkle in the eye, she gave some great performances, A murder is announced and The Body in the Library i loved. This version of Nemesis though was not great, a 6/10 rating I think is fairly generous, calling it Nemesis was taking a bit of a liberty, the core of the story was totally lost, it was a pity a Caribbean Mystery hadn't come first to set the scene. It was a really messy script, which was held together by the quality acting and beautiful scenery. Even the wonderful Amanda Burton couldn't save the day, I find it quite an irritating version, the Will Mellor and wife storyline doesn't work, I didn't like the change of the 3 weird sisters into nuns, the whole point of the 3 sisters was the comparison between the 3 witches in Macbeth etc and turning them into 2 nuns did not work. On the plus side it was an attempt to freshen up the script to try something new, and some aspects worked OK, I will add that i think the last 10 minutes are fantastic, it's worth sticking with to get to the finale, the acting is excellent. 6/10 I think the 1987 version is just so good, this was never going to come up to the mark.

Should have followed the original story...I don't mind the actress playing Marple, but the script..dear me, why nuns?