Poirot "Elephants Can Remember" #13.1 (2013) (TV)

Impressive, 29 March 2017

Hercule Poirot is approached by his friend, writer Ariadne Oliver, for help with a 13-year old mystery she's investigating. The mystery involves the unusual death of a husband and wife. Was it murder- suicide or some sort of suicide pact or murder by an unknown person? And if it was murder-suicide, who shot who? These are the questions Ms Oliver has been asked to investigate. Poirot, however, has little time for his friend. He has the recent murder of a semi- retired psychiatrist, Dr Willoughby, to investigate. The doctor was gruesomely murdered in the basement of the psychiatric hospital bearing his name in a discarded and discredited piece of equipment originally designed for hydrotherapy. Things get interesting (and fun) when Ms Oliver and Poirot realize that their separate investigations are starting to merge. It seems that someone with vital knowledge of the 13-year old mystery may know something about the new murder.

I haven't read Elephants Can Remember in at least 30 years. Therefore, I have no idea how closely this production stays to every single plot point in Agatha Christie's original work. I remember just enough about the book to know that certain key plot points are the same. Overall, I'm really impressed with this episode of the Poirot series. Elephants Can Remember has, what I call, a lot of moving parts and can easily get confusing. What I mean is that there are a lot of characters with a lot of information, two mysteries separated by 13 years, and two different investigations going on at the same time. It would be easy to forget who's who and who said what, etc. But the people behind this episode did a fantastic job of keeping the confusion to a minimum. Once the two plot threads start to come together, things become very clear. It's an amazing bit of storytelling on the part of the director and screenwriters. And to top it off, they kept everything interesting. The mystery grabbed me from the beginning and kept my interest throughout. Nice work!

I've gone on and on about David Suchet's work as Poirot. He once again gives a first-rate performance. While I may enjoy the lighter Poirot seen in the first part of the series, there's no denying the quality of Suchet's acting here. I've seen Zoe Wannamaker as Ms Oliver in a few episodes now and she's stating to grow on me. I never cared much for the character in the books, so it's taken a while. The supporting cast is as strong as I've come to expect. Vanessa Kirby, Greta Sacchi, and Iain Glen were stand outs for me. The sets, costumes, and most of the technical aspects were, once again, class. My biggest complaint is with lighting. The whole thing was just too dark for my tastes. Otherwise, it's a quality episode that I rate an 8/10.

8/10