The last Poirot.

I loved Poirot for all the Art Deco buildings, fashion & design & the music & design at the start. That takes me back to Saturday evening watching with the kids. I also loved David S, Hastings (looks like my Dad) & Miss Lemon. I seldom got the plot but that didn't matter. So my disappointment about the later ones is about the loss of the things I loved about the early series. I found the way the last 4 were filmed very gloomy but I still watched them.

Just as Joan Hickson is the seminal Miss Marple, David Suchet is the seminal Poirot, but last night's episode remains disappointing.

I was reading an interview with David Suchet and he said that the earlier stories didn't involve big name actors. I seem to remember that in its early days Poirot was much better. I think David Suchet was a great Poirot though and a wonderful actor.

I totally agree with all those that were disappointed. I love Poirot, but I was baffled by this episode and even nodded of at one point.

I love David Suchet as Poirot , he seems just as I imagine he would be !
I love his stories more than Marple.
I am afraid though I did not really enjoy last night"s episode . I will read the book and compare to see what I think !

It seemed to have been put into the plot purely so that Poirot could successfully impersonate the man he murdered...

I really didn't see the point of the false moustache! What was the reason?

Going back to last nights episode, the most ridiculous bit was Poirot using a key to the room which he "had had copied" HOW ?

I loved the Poirot series - particularly liked all the period detail.

I know someone who lives in the London square where Poiret 'lives' - she used to enjoy watching the comings and goings during filming.

PPB, I quite liked the Albert Finney version(as far as I can remember)- until I saw the Poirot. Much better IMHO.

Oh yes I liked that particular mystery too merlotgran.

Thinking back, yes it was set with a gloomy brown tint. I think (in my humble opinion) the programme makers made all the best Poirot stories before coming to these last 4.

My favourite Poirot mystery was the one set in the Lake District where a gorgeous little Lakeland terrier he called Monsieur Bob solves the crime.

Off topic, Flickety, but have you got the Bruno Cremer Maigret boxed set? They are brilliant, subtitled in English (apart from the last box), but with beautiful clear French.

I have really enjoyed Poirot over the years and we keep a set of this series in our house in France, where we have no television and many an winter evening is spent in front of the fire, glass of wine in hand, watching a Poirot DVD on my laptop. However last night's episode of Poirot was completely OTT

The whole episode seemed to be filmed with a brown filter over the camera lens. Unrelieved gloom is boring and unrealistic. From personal experience the saddest of times can suddenly be relieved for a while by a burst of laughter over something trivial - and this episode entirely lacked those intervals. The plot was complicated and unbelievable and I was only able to work out who the characters were as they were killed off.
It is a shame they didn't manage to kill them all off in the first scene and get it over with quickly.

Still, at least I got the ironing done and peeled and chopped a mountain of apples for stewing while watching it so it wasn't an entirely wasted evening.

I think rereading the first Poirot before you watch the last may make a difference. David Suchet said he had to lose a stone for this last episode.

I haven't watched the last one yet, but I think the fundamental problem is that they are too long and one hour would be enough to tell the story. They do seem to have improved on the series before this one, which seemed to me to have extraordinary anachronisms of language and behaviour. We have the boxed set of the earlier series and they still stand up well. With these later ones, I find myself longing for the facility we had on one recording device, where you could play it at one and a half times the speed.

I have recorded them too grateful so it's a shame if the final one didn't come up to the mark. I should imagine David will be glad to give up the padding after all these years but I reckon it will be difficult for him to take on other parts now.

Oh dear, I have recorded these last 4 episodes, but not had time to watch them yet due to work. Was planning a poirot fest on Sunday (with a short break for the Grand Prix), but am worried now as it seems, from the comments here, it was not as good as I hoped.

Will persevere and fingers crossed I don't delete half way through.

As you say penguinpaperback David was the poirot for me, and I agree about Joan Hickson too.

Both of them have captured the essence of the characters in the books, and are just as I had pictured them in my mind when reading them many years ago.

Too predictable. Very disappointing last episode.

I think Hercule Poirot's Christmas Hunt. Poirot spends Christmas with an awful family, the head of the house is murdered, there are snowy village scenes, children singing carols and Inspector Japp's wife has knit Poirot, for Christmas, some awful lumpy wool gloves.
It's the dated aspect I love too. I have around 50 something Agatha Christie paperbacks, she did write the odd dud but especially around Christmas I like to read a few of my favourites.
What did you think of the Albert Finney film version Murder on the Orient Express Hunt?

The best Poirot ever was David Suchet in Murder on the Orient Express. It really didn't feel like a puuzle as most of them do, it was much more 'real'. Which was your favourite?

It's the dated aspect that I love, however this particular one didn't do it for me.

I didn't enjoy it either, Brendawymms, The early Poirots were as good as the early Miss Marples but Agatha Christie is now so dated I don't think her stories translate as well as they used to.

I kept waiting for it to start....it was turgid, and the line about Poirot having 'recently started to wear a false moustache' - how ridiculous was that?

Very disappointing.