When Hercule Poirot's central heating goes out just at the start of the Christmas holidays, he happily accepts employment over the period from the wealthy but tyrannical head of his family, Simon Lee. The assignment is perhaps not totally clear, however when Mr Lee is found murdered and some diamonds missing, Poirot finds himself with a familiar, but typically unconventional murder case.
The downside of catching up with shows on boxset style watching, is that you find yourself frequently celebrating Halloween, Thansgiving, Christmas and other holidays outside of the context of the time of year. So it was with this Christmas edition of Poirot, where the festivities of a family Christmas are rather spoilt by a brutally violent and noisy murder; not that the tense family circle and domineering patriarch of Lee really was ever going to produce a relaxing holiday season anyway. As an episode, I didn't find that it was particularly festive and was a lot less fun than I would expected it to be – a feeling I know which is due to the characters being mostly quite mean spirited, but still, for Christmas one expected a bit more of a light touch. That aside though, the story is pretty good with a nice mystery even if it does have some things wrong with it.
The prologue was a mistake I think because it really only exists because it must relate to the impending murder, which then leads the viewer to the conclusion that those that have nothing to do with that time or event, must only be red-herrings; not only this, but it is a bit long for what it is trying to deliver. There are aspects of the plotting which don't work as well as others, in particular around the middle of the extended episode it did feel like the pace slowed or perhaps it was buying time, not too badly but still. Otherwise though it is a decently told story even if some of it were leaps beyond me, and I did have the feeling of it all being explained at the end, rather than me even being close to having most of it already in my head.
The cast are good. Suchet on good form as ever and sharing some funny moments with Jackson's Japp. This dynamic works but it did rather reinforce the absence of Fraser's Hastings, who I like and miss when he is not around for extended periods of time. The supporting cast are quite fun, in particular the simple but effective lead from Dobtcheff and also other roles from Behar for example. As usual the production has the good feel of the period in terms of clothes, set design and location, although the heavy use of internal shots and darkness didn't help the look of the episode particularly.
The end result is not one of my favorite of the series, nor one of the best, but it has a steady strength which puts it to the generally high standard set by this character.
