Poirot "The Plymouth Express" #3.4 (1991) (TV)

Not too bad to start - then it all falls apart, 1 August 2015

Florence Halliday, the daughter of a wealthy Australian businessman, has two men looking to gain her affections or at least attention - her estranged husband and a Frenchman her father does not approve of. When Florence is found brutally murdered on a train and her jewel case stolen, Poirot has two ready-made suspects to investigate.

While The Plymouth Express has all of the usual good trappings you find in a Poirot episode, there are moments that make this one of the poorer efforts I've seen so far. Sets like the train station and shots of the train itself are beautifully done. The acting is what you expect - strong. In a smaller than normal part, for some reason I really enjoyed Pauline Moran's performance as Miss Lemon in this episode. Parts of the mystery are nice with plenty of red herrings. Yes, as others have pointed out, The Plymouth Express does have plenty of padding. I didn't find it necessarily a bad thing though. All episodes have their share of padding. And I was particularly impressed with the music. I usually don't notice it, but here, it's particularly effective.

But this is where the positive comments end. The Plymouth Express has a couple of plot points that really bug me and one that drives me insane. First, why was Florence traveling with ALL of her jewelry? What's the point other than to get yourself murdered? Second, why does the viewer see Florence smiling broadly with an air of recognition when she sees her murderer, a man she'd never met, enter her train car while later in a flashback there is no such noticeable smile? It's all an extreme cheat. Third, speaking of cheats, we come to the thing that about made me pull what little hair I have out of my head. As much as I dislike it, I've come to accept Poirot episodes where bits of information and clues are only revealed by Poirot in the final reveal. It is annoying. But when you introduce a killer out of thing air, a man you've never seen, a man whose name you've never heard, a man you had no reason to believe even existed, well then you've gone too far. It completely destroys the mood of the episode.

4/10