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shallowness) wrote2020-02-11 07:45 am
shallowness) wrote2020-02-11 07:45 am
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The Pale Horse part 1
I reposted a fic on Sunday. Can’t tell yet if that’s a one-off or something I’ll do more regularly. It should be the latter as there are still plenty of ficlets of mine only available on Livejournal and ff.net.
Anyway, I have a TV show to discuss!
The Pale Horse 1/2 or is it Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse?
It’s classy BBC adaptation time, with some language that Christie never published. It’s carried by Rufus Sewell (oh the hardship of watching THAT) as a man named on a list of people, most of whom are dead. As if losing his first wife to electrocution (or was it?) wasn’t enough. So he lied to the police, pretended he was fine, but freaked out and tried to find out more.
It was hard to wholly sympathise with Nick Easterbrook: why did he remarry so quickly? There seemed to be little more than chilly companionship between him and his new wife (glad her youth was addressed) and his affair with showgirl/heiress Thomasina wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had no-one to betray. And one of the things he was hiding from the police was that he’d woken up beside a dead Thomasina and left her to be found by others, which he did seem remorseful about. But, you know, bad show.
I hope his assumption that the man in the village is behind The Witches is wrong, i.e. if it is them, can't they be their own agents?
(I seem to have a Christie eraser. It’s quite possible I’ve read this, as I read a lot of Christie in my teens, but I rarely remember who did it. But then again, the adaptation may have changed the guilty party.)
I’m undecided as to whether Scodelario is good casting as Hermia, (I heard ‘Hernia’ before my brain kicked in) the second wife. Too modern a face? But then, this is very much an autumn-winter 2019-20 adap.) Hermia the classic bored, neurotic housewife second-wave feminists described, but in the specific circs of having married a widow in under a year and living in the same house as his first wife died in. We saw her trust in Nick depart, and she didn’t know the half of it, but maybe did realise that she’d only thought she was getting what she’d wanted.
But she has a snazzy wardrobe!
Good to see Gotham’s Sean Pertwee playing an intelligent cop.
The pace was snappy, with Nick’s increasingly frazzled state of mind effectively conveyed. I particularly liked shots clearly filmed from another car, whether it was meant to be from the pov of another character watching him or just to enhance his paranoia. The big question is whether the only other person still living on the list is right: is it witch-craft and are The Witches (an uncanny trio) assassinating these people by curses? (If not, has Netflix signed up the concept?) The creepy village ceremony was most effective. On the other hand, Nick could be losing his hair, like other people who would die did, out of stress. Or poisoning (it is Christie after all).
It feels like a 2-parter is the right length, I don’t think there’s enough story to support more. Not that I have a hard guess as to the solution to the mystery.
But maybe the first Mrs Eastbrook shouldn’t ought to have gone to Much Deeping for a consultation, eh? Especially in that dress. She seemed well over-dressed.
And what’s with the stuffed polar bear?
Anyway, I have a TV show to discuss!
The Pale Horse 1/2 or is it Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse?
It’s classy BBC adaptation time, with some language that Christie never published. It’s carried by Rufus Sewell (oh the hardship of watching THAT) as a man named on a list of people, most of whom are dead. As if losing his first wife to electrocution (or was it?) wasn’t enough. So he lied to the police, pretended he was fine, but freaked out and tried to find out more.
It was hard to wholly sympathise with Nick Easterbrook: why did he remarry so quickly? There seemed to be little more than chilly companionship between him and his new wife (glad her youth was addressed) and his affair with showgirl/heiress Thomasina wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had no-one to betray. And one of the things he was hiding from the police was that he’d woken up beside a dead Thomasina and left her to be found by others, which he did seem remorseful about. But, you know, bad show.
I hope his assumption that the man in the village is behind The Witches is wrong, i.e. if it is them, can't they be their own agents?
(I seem to have a Christie eraser. It’s quite possible I’ve read this, as I read a lot of Christie in my teens, but I rarely remember who did it. But then again, the adaptation may have changed the guilty party.)
I’m undecided as to whether Scodelario is good casting as Hermia, (I heard ‘Hernia’ before my brain kicked in) the second wife. Too modern a face? But then, this is very much an autumn-winter 2019-20 adap.) Hermia the classic bored, neurotic housewife second-wave feminists described, but in the specific circs of having married a widow in under a year and living in the same house as his first wife died in. We saw her trust in Nick depart, and she didn’t know the half of it, but maybe did realise that she’d only thought she was getting what she’d wanted.
But she has a snazzy wardrobe!
Good to see Gotham’s Sean Pertwee playing an intelligent cop.
The pace was snappy, with Nick’s increasingly frazzled state of mind effectively conveyed. I particularly liked shots clearly filmed from another car, whether it was meant to be from the pov of another character watching him or just to enhance his paranoia. The big question is whether the only other person still living on the list is right: is it witch-craft and are The Witches (an uncanny trio) assassinating these people by curses? (If not, has Netflix signed up the concept?) The creepy village ceremony was most effective. On the other hand, Nick could be losing his hair, like other people who would die did, out of stress. Or poisoning (it is Christie after all).
It feels like a 2-parter is the right length, I don’t think there’s enough story to support more. Not that I have a hard guess as to the solution to the mystery.
But maybe the first Mrs Eastbrook shouldn’t ought to have gone to Much Deeping for a consultation, eh? Especially in that dress. She seemed well over-dressed.
And what’s with the stuffed polar bear?
no subject
Her first comment was to ask why a Cotswold village was found in the middle of Surrey.
no subject
Her first comment was to ask why a Cotswold village was found in the middle of Surrey.
Heh! That passed me by, but I'm hazy on English architecture/geography.
no subject
Overall, part 1 didn't impress me; it feels like they changed quite a bit from the original and while I like Rufus Sewell in some other series, he doesn't fit my version of what Book!Mark Easterbrook is like. (Also, Mark isn't married at this point in time in the book so that doesn't help at all either.) Also, the book featured/portrayed more female characters than what I've seen in the tv series so far.
Honestly, if I hadn't already seen part 1, I don't think I'd bother with part 2. If you haven't read the book (or forgot it already), I suppose the tv version isn't too bad.
no subject
Other reviews have talked about how much has been chaned, although it's a real shame that they've reduced the female interaction. But like most of Phelps's adaptations of Christie, it holds enough fascination to keep me watching, even if I don't much like the characters.