Mrs McGinty's Dead

I always look forward to a new Poirot. It's Sunday evening entertainment that you can genuinely get absorbed by.

I think it's always worked because it's so comfortable. Agatha Christie's plots may be distinct to a certain extent and yet they all have some very common motifs. Poirot reliably totters around the same country houses with incompetent but solid police inspectors, gruff majors, femme fatale actresses, little old ladies and untrustworthy artist types.

What made this latest episode so cool was that the director had worked very, very hard to unsettle you. The usual stereotypes were all there, but at the same time there was an air of menace that I haven't seen in a Poirot before. The village of Broadhinny became like a kind of 1950's version of Royston Vasey, shot in sinister angles and film noir lighting.

It might not work if every episode was filmed like this, but this was a very welcome addition to Sunday night. Even if it freaked me out.