Best episodes of "Agatha Christie's Poirot" with David Suchet?

Sometimes the novels that aren't very good make quite good episodes/features for Suchet's Poirot series. For example, I thought they did a marvelous job with "Hallowe'en Party," one of the weakest of all Christie's books. My favorites, though, have been the ones with the craziest Art Deco sets and costumes, like "Death in the Clouds."

The re-makes of "Death on the Nile" and "Murder on the Orient Express" are surprisingly good, and very different from the earlier films.
Still waiting for one. The one-note treatment of the first couple of decades, followed by the inscrutably and inappropriately pinched characterization changes in the more recent episodes, leave one wishing for something better. But most of us realized the mistake when he was first hired.
I think he's a great Poirot, R2. Any lack of depth can be attributed to Christie's poor characterizations. She was a pretty terrible writer, who just happened to have a good brain for puzzles.
Baroness James
"...leave one wishing for something better." "one"? Ooh, we [italic]are[/italic] grand, Lady Mary, aren't we?
The one where he solves the murder!
I recently saw "The Mystery of the Blue Train" and I was surprised at how much fin the great Lindsay Duncan had in it as a blowsy society parasite. Even more surprising was Elliot Gould, who played the murdered girl's millionaire father--he just cannot act at all! I mean, he is so stilted and wooden he always sounds exactly like he's reciting lines. But wasn't he a huge Hollywood leading man in the early 1970s, playing starring roles for Robert Altman? how did he get parts like that? Certainly not on his looks.
Christie considered "Blue Train" her worst novel.
Although critics have not shared that opinion, r7. And it's no wonder she hated it: it's the one she was working on when she had found out about her husband's infidelity and when she then disappeared for several days.
I love the fact that Christie wrote an autobiography - and blithely omitted any reference to her famous disappearance! Rather refreshing in these days of - as Patsy Stone would say - "two-a-penny tarts of recent times, you know, kiss-and-tell, blurt it all out for the promise of a quick buck and instant fame."
Of the later movies I enjoyed "Cat Among the Pigeons" in fact almost everything before David Suchet became a Christian.
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In no particular order: Hercule Poirot's Christmas Cat among the pigeons Evil under the sun Death on the Nile Murder on the links Dumb witness Death in the clouds Three of the saddest episodes, but still very well done Appointment with death Five little pigs Sad cypress
Murder in Mesopotamia, Sad Cypress, and The Hollow are all good. Of the most recent ones, Hallowe'en Party is brilliantly done - very stylish (Mark Gatiss wrote it). Five Little Pigs, Cat Among the Pigeons and Appointment with Death are good.
I have to say, though, that I think with "Orient Express" (a big disappointment), "Death on the NIle," and especially "Evil Under the Sun," the big screen versions are better. The TV versions may be more accurate to the book, but none of the films is as good as the earlier features.
"After the Funeral" episode, just because Michael Fassbender is in it.
I liked the gay angle they added to Five Little Pigs.
Yea, I do agree that the earlier versions of Death on the Nile and Evil under the sun were perhaps stronger as they had a larger budgets, I still do like both the David Suchet versions, you are correct in saying that they follow closely to the originals, but still there are some changes! Re the saddest episodes I mentioned, to this day I cannot watch them without weeping as the credits roll. I know they are only works of fiction, but I do find the three very emotive.
The Plymouth Express.
I don't get why Appointment with Death is so sad? I perfectly understand with Five Little Pigs and Sad Cypress, but what is so sad about Appointment with Death? The murder victim is a horrible person.
There's also a big-screen Appointment With Death, with Lauren Bacall (and Ustinov) but it's the only one of the big-screen Poirots that disappoints.
Mrs McGinty's Dead and Cards on the Table are my favorites, but I'll throw in Murder at the Vicarage with the lovely Janet McTeer as note-perfect, too. Beautiful and sad, that would be Five Little Pigs.
Are there new Suchets? The ones on Netflix are just 50 minute episodes, not full novels...where are you finding these?
In the Suchet episodes, it's plainly clear that he and Hastings are lovers, which is interesting ... in the novels, they're more like old chums.
It is because of the way she treated her children - that is why I find it so sad, yes she was a horrible person and I am not sad because she was the victim
On App't with Death being sad-- Isn't the motive for the murder that she abused a little girl? And I think the murderers were the two parents of their now-grown daughter? (Or am I thinking of another one?)
R22, you are fantasizing. They are not a couple.
R21, where have you been? There are dozens of full-novel, 90 minute to two hour Poirots. Everything for the last several years has been 90 minutes.
Hastings was fucking both Miss Lemon and Poirot. Christie said so herself.
R 27. Really? In which novel or story does it say that? I have read every one of her novels and short stories at least twice and never found a reference to any of that carry on!
Has anybody else noticed that there is always some derision from other characters because Poirot is a "foreigner" or just badmouthing of foreigners in general? It happens at least once per episode. Why is this so prominent?
Typical of the era Christie herself grew up in and started writing in, r29. Those kinds of references don't happen really (in the books) by the time Christie got to the 1960s. But she kept her books "modern" - ie, they were happening in whatever time it was when she wrote. The TV movies, of course, can't do that, so the producers stuck with 1930s. And that "foreigner" attitude was still around then.