Agatha Christie Ordeal by Innocence

[buddhasbelly]

Is it just me or is anyone else really excited to watch this tonight?

So glad they reshot this so we can enjoy it

Why didn’t Hester return to her DH after the forced abortion?

He isn't her husband. Hester has a disastrous relationship in the book but she isn't married.


I think she's supposed to be married in the adaptation. Didn't she say she was married in the letter to her mother?

I must be really thick because I didn't realise that the ticking clock and blood were supposed to let us know that there was a flashback.

Nearly as bad as Marcella 🙈🙈🙈🙈

She was too ill to think clearly I think? Plus her delightful mother was bumped off shortly after Hester was brought back.

Was a bit too dark and I expect lots of people loved it (despite the 1.5 less viewers for the second episode) so all the other christies will now be adapted with extra characters, subplots and different murderers.

I thought it was very disappointing. Didn't bear much relation to the book, so I have no idea why the writer didn't just write something completely new instead of "adapting" AC. Overblown melodramatic malarkey.

I quite liked it. Haven't read the book but really want to now. I thought Leo was quite a Christie-like pick for the murderer. The motive in many Christies is money, as Leo's was. It's one of the reasons i like them - much more believable imo than lewis-style weird obsession/unconvincing mental health problem you get in more modern stuff.

Re Philip, i think the idea was he clearly didn't give a crap any more and was going to keep loudly stirring until someone worked something out, and Leo couldn't risk it. In the breakfast table scene when he's being generally unpleasant, Leo tells Philip that he isn't going to give Rachel any more money - thought that was a coded 'i know you're on to me and i'm not paying you off' type thing.

The end though - !!!??? there was some justification in the sense they obviously all thought the police were still corrupt, and maybe couldn't risk handing Leo over - but would they just keep him in the bunker forever? i did wonder whether just Kirsten knew he was there, and the children thought he really was in the lake, but how would she have got him there on her own?

oh and the police officer - did he deliberately run his car into the wall, knowing it would come out that he framed Jack? or did he just lose control?

That ending was a bit clichéd. I've seen two tv dramas recently that finished with the villain being secretly incarcerated for life, one was "Paula" and the other one I'm trying to remember!

No Marcella was a million times worse, whoever wrote that was on drugs!!

I agree @missB1

Truly dreadful.

I must be really thick because I didn't realise that the ticking clock and blood were supposed to let us know that there was a flashback.

LARLARLAND though it was super-confusing. The ticking clock/blood thingy were just for flashbacks to the night of the murder i think. then some flashbacks had a date before them, some were to childhood and some seemed to be just shoved in any old how so i sound it very hard to know where we were half the time!

It was very confusing

And Then There Were None was largely carried by Charles Dance and the landscape, and by its sticking to some semblance of Christie plotting - certainly not by the writing.

The further Phelps deviates from Christie, the shitter the outcome.

Just read online that Sarah Phelps is adapting The ABC Murders for Christmas. I feel a deep sense of foreboding - I love this one. Maybe she'll make Poirot the murderer

Captain Hastings will be his lover.

I actually quite like And The There Were None. It was very atmospheric and she didn't mess with the plot too much - just added some sex, drugs and rock and roll, which I suppose is how to get these things commissioned. But she's really taken that and run with it, and not for the better.

Clawdy is the other drama you're thinking of an episode of Inside Number 9? I thought the incarceration was better done there as there were clear reasons for it.

Maybe she'll make Poirot the murderer

Or write him out of it completely . . .

Better that than turn him into a junkie or something,

I regret wasting 3 hours of my life by watching this crap. I found Bill Nighy incredibly irritating and kept having to turn the sound up every time he opened his mouth.

ABC murders was one of the ones ITV's series got perfectly correct, it's more or less a definitive version, they've shortend lots of unimportant interviews by having a bunch happen off screen and added Hastings shooting the Cayman in argentina subplot, it's brilliant.
As long as she doesn't do a George lucas digitally retroactively change that version she can do what she likes.

Emily yes, you are right! It was Inside Number 9, thank you!

Clawdy is the other drama you're thinking of an episode of Inside Number 9? I thought the incarceration was better done there as there were clear reasons for it

And as an aside just how brilliant is Inside Number 9?

I enjoyed it for what it was- but what it was was not a faithful adaption by any stretch of the imagination. I'd read they'd changed the murderer so it meant it was more who dunnit-y for me rather than watching and knowing. I've made DH watch And Then There Where None and Witness for The Prosecution so I'm gutted he's away and missed this one.

I liked the clothes, the bunker element, the Kristen/Jack thing, the guy who they recast as Mickey and I thought the murderer worked. I did not like them turning Philip into a complete knob, Mary being such a wet blanket or the mental illness "storyline" with Calgary which wasn't needed. Although I suppose they had to have a reason for all the subterfuge/credibility issues otherwise we'd have all been screaming, "JUST CALL THE FUCKING POLICE" at the telly.

I've actually just realised that I've never read the original so that's now on my reading list.

The title 'Ordeal by Innocence' means that when Arthur Calgary announces that Jacko couldn't have committed the murder, the rest of the family are under suspicion. I.e. the innocent suffer until the real murderer can be found, the tension builds as they all suspect each other, their lives are on hold. I didn't get that at all from the adaptation, especially as most of it was in flashback. I'm surprised she kept the title the same as it meant nothing.