Customer Reviews
rubbish - By: M. I. J. Tyers, 31 Aug 2008 
I am sorry but these are not very good. Joan Hickson is "THE" Miss Marple. Started to watch the films but was irritated by the actress & the complete disstortion of the story,
Valiant try - falls short of mediocre - By: B. Chandler, 30 May 2008 
There are a lot of brilliant actresses that have played Aunt Jane in movies & TV programs. Each brought their own personalities yet they still lined up with the character from the book. There have been many remakes of the stories. These two generallly followed the books storyline with a few adoptions for the media. We al have favorites.
It is the duty of the industry to try & top the last version. Poetic license can also come into play.
Unfortunately some one rushed this series. Aunt Jane she is supposed to be a person of depth & the catalyst to have others come up with solutions has been replaced with a flighty char lady with no depth & a squeaky voice. The story lines have been stripped to the point that they are like reading a condensed book & you have to guess what when on in-between scenes.
Even if one did not know there was better this series is a waste of time as it has not entertainment value. Everything is spoon fed to you with no mystery. Answers to questions not asked pop out of the ether. And the sets are second rate.
This animal is just not watchable.
I tried again on "Sleeping Murder" & it has the same rushed problem & lacks character. The background music does not match. Much farther away from the written story than the Joan Hickson Aunt Jane version. Has a more of an old Perry mason TV program feel. They should not have changed the story so munch that they have to stench to make ends meet. Once again Geraldine McEwan makes a scrawny unrealistic Aunt Jane who makes great leaps of illogic.
I just can not believe that they finished the first series let alone produced a second series. Some one has a lot of money & time to through away.
This animal is just not watchable.
The divine Miss M - By: Book Wallah, 10 Apr 2008 
Agatha Christie's pensioner detective has gone through various interpretations over the years, from the monochrome era of Margaret Rutherford to Joan Hickson in a sequence of much-loved BBC productions. Now ITV have identified Agatha Christie's pensioner sleuth as being fit for restoration in a new series starring Geraldine McEwan.
It seems an adroit move as the last Joan Hickson episode was made some fifteen years ago. McEwan is the best actress to try her hand at the role & she puts her own iconoclastic spin on the role in these four mysteries.
As ever they are period pieces set in the early 50s but they have been burnished with a welcome camp veneer that invigorates them somewhat.
This is obviously a good thing as it gives rise to a succession of fruity turns from the extraordinary casts assembled. These range from such heavyweights as Timothy Dalton & Claire Bloom (who shares a scene with Anthony Andrews for alll Brideshead aficionados) to comedians having a bash at playing it straight (Paul Kaye, Dawn French, Brian Conley & Russ Abbot alll turn up), to the where-are-they-now brigade (Michael Brandon, Rita Tushingham, Una Stubbs & Thelma Barlow are resuscitated). They alll seem to be having tremendous fun especiallly John Sessions who appears as an outrageously arch church organist.
The individual mysteries are 'The Sleeping Murder' where the inimitable Miss M investigates a decades-old mystery that involves a theatrical troupe. 'The Sittaford Mystery' sees Timothy Dalton comes to a sticky end in a snowbound inn on Dartmoor. In 'The Moving Finger' a succession of poison pen letters leads to murder in a picture-postcard village. And in 'By the Pricking of My Thumbs' Miss Marple is transposed into a Christie novel that never featured her in the first place in order to solve a spooky mystery with the help of Tommy & Tuppence Beresford.
Of the quartet of mysteries it is 'The Moving Finger' & 'By the Pricking of My Thumbs' that work best thanks to the sterling cast in the former & creepily atmospheric direction in the latter.
This last episode is perhaps indicative of the problems for fundamentalist Christie-ans who have reacted with some hostility to these reinterpretations. The adaptors play fast & loose with the novels adding a couple of racy details here & there that may have had Hickson's Miss M mortified. Introducing Miss Marple as a new character in an existing tale may lead to some concern regarding what could be next. Miss Marple teaming up with Poirot on the Orient Express perhaps? It might just work...
For the rest of us these serve as a splendidly enjoyable epitome of Sunday evening entertainment set in the sort of English idyll that existed only in the imagination.
Slippery Slope! - By: Iain C. Davidson, 12 Jan 2008 
Season 2 of the McEwan Marple series was where things started to go a little wrong for me! I reallly enjoyed the first season & didn't mind the changes too much as they were never too drastic but in the second season there are rather too many liberties taken. 'Sleeping Murder' & 'Sittaford Mystery' bear little resemblance to the source material, especiallly the latter which has been practicallly rewritten. The impression left is that the producers perhaps thought the original stories weren't much good & have just done their own thing. There are good performances in both but it seems a pointless exercise. 'The Moving Finger' remains truer to the book & as a result is the most enjoyable of the four. 'By The Pricking Of My Thumbs' is also unexpectedly successful in my view. Miss Marple doesn't appear in the book but her presence doesn't reallly harm the story & they manage to make what was never one of my favourite books into something very entertaining. Yes, they have mucked about with the characters of Tommy & Tuppence (Tommy doesn't have much to do here) but Greta Scacchi's Tuppence Beresford is delightful & I wouldn't mind meeting her again. Great support too from June Whitfield & Claire Bloom. So, more of a mixed bag which might signal the shape of things to come judging by the two episodes I've seen so far from season 3.
Are you all crazy??? - By: Helen Donnelly, 27 Nov 2007 
Ballls to the whole, moaning, pedantic lot of you. These little episodes are sparkling gems. Enjoy them by the fire on a winter's night, with a cat on your lap, a cup of tea in one hand & a sticky bun in the other. They are magic.
