Disappointment is a harsh burden, especially when there was great expectation. Any fan of mysteries can understand this
sentiment.
I remember the Agatha
Christie books and how my white-haired grandmother would devour them. Devour them!
Then those books came to me, and I became a Christie fan.
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In 1985 or so, BBC
released the Agatha Christie Mysteries starring Joan Hickson. She was an amazing Miss Marple, perfect to
the letter. The excellent filming,
settings that screamed “England! Right
here!”, as well as the accuracy of clothing and times presented all the
engaging drama one has come to expect from BBC mysteries.
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Let’s leave Dame Margaret Rutherford out of this,
shall we.
Today’s American
murder/drama/police dramas have gone down a dark, predictable road. My heart is broken.
It is a dead
give-away who did what the moment actors start appearing. Excluding the usual main characters, the “bad
guy” will be the once-off actor who is the most famous and gets paid the most.
And the plot? The instigating event occurs by the 14th
minute. The searching for clues lasts
until the 47th minute. The
big “Ah HA!” hits around the 52nd minute, with winding down (through
commercials) until the 58th minute.
Then there are ads and previews of the next episode.
Disappointment,
indeed. Agatha Christie
would have wept.
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Have you tried watching Murdock Mysteries on Monday nights?
ReplyDeleteYes, we have watched Murdock, and enjoy it. We love Morse, Lewis, Vera, Blue Murder, Somerset Murders,....and another one. We have NetFlix on line,, so we get our English murder fixes frequently!
DeleteIt took me years to collect every book Agatha ever wrote. I carried a list of her books in my wallet and found them during my garage-sale scrounging days. Then I "loaned" the whole big box of them to my brother, who is also a fan of hers and that was years ago. I hope he didn't thoughtlessly toss them. I may want to re-read them some day.
ReplyDeleteLovely post.
May God protect him if he has thoughtlessly tossed them.
DeleteOh my gosh I used to LOVE watching Agatha Christie mysteries. I loved "Ten Little Indians" the most.
ReplyDeleteLove that one!
DeleteMost things are mundane on tv now a days
ReplyDeleteBBC holds its standard, but US likes to mix it up, and thus ruin the quality.
DeleteYou are so right about the current run of "mysteries" on TV. They seem to be more about "how graphic can we make this murder scene look?" than about solving who done it.
ReplyDeleteThe latest CSI: Las Vegas was so detailed in its gore, at the PRIME TIME hour when children are still running around, that we turned it off.
DeleteIt is rather pathetic indeed, that is why i barely ever watch cop shows anymore, they are all the same. Find some magic piece of evidence, whalla. And it is always that actor that plays bad guys everywhere.
ReplyDeleteTelevision, even on the BBC, has become rather tedious and predictable. We have to have a license to watch the BBC. I shall weep over that.
ReplyDeleteTake care, Susan and please, stop sending over rubbish American shows :)
What!?? You have to have a license to watch BBC?? The gov't again getting its piece of the pie, I guess.
DeleteI too have been a longtime Agatha Christie fan and have enjoyed BBC dramatizations of her work. She is one of the few authors whose work I can read again and again --whodunnit becomes secondary to the sheer pleasure of her narrative.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I reread her books for the pleasure of her writing. She was/is a gem of a writer.
DeleteWhich is part of the reason I am a reader rather than a watcher of mysteries. Interestingly I prefer Agatha Christie's memoirs and autobiographies to her murder mysteries (if there are young lovers one of them is probably guilty). And I prefer Ngaio Marsh mysteries to her autobiography.
ReplyDeleteI have read only one of Ngaio Marsh mysteries, and did not get into the flow of the story.
DeleteSorry for your disappointment. I hare it, too. TV, I have heard described as virtually endless commercials interrupted by bad programming. Which is why I rarely watch anything.
ReplyDeleteBlessings and Bear hugs!
Since NetFlix, Hulu, et al, have become available, we hardly ever watch actual TV programs.
DeleteVery good thoughts. I have loved Agatha Christie since I came upon her in our school library.
ReplyDeleteWe had to be in eighth grade to read books in that area. As a sixth grader, how I wanted to read that section.
When I finally made it I was enchanted. You are so right, the mysteries today have gone down a dark path.
So nice that you have thought about this. I enjoyed reading your thoughts. I always like reading about books.
Once I discovered the mystery section in the library, I seemed to stay there for a long time.
DeleteMy grandmother used to devour Agatha Christie books too. I remember trying to read one once, I was an avid reader even as a child, but it was a bit over my head and I switched over to reading her Perry Mason books. I may have to give one a try now that I'm grown. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, loved Perry Mason books!
DeleteThe murder mysteries on TV these days are too graphic for me and there are just too many of them. I keep hoping that they will bring The Walton's back.
ReplyDeleteHallmark Channel--it has the type of shows I enjoy, esp. at night. Re-runs of Murder She Wrote, etc. Enjoyable.
DeleteI was never able to read Agatha Christie, I prefer my crime TV style.
ReplyDeleteTry some mysteries that are excellent in their capture of the period, like the 1950s.
DeleteJoan Hickson was my favourite Miss Marple too. The recent actresses portraying her aren’t a patch on good old Joan.
ReplyDelete