The major points of the mystery are all there - the petty thefts, the boarding house, the students, the ripped rucksack, and, of course, Poirot's ability to see something sinister going on before it actually happens. I realize that certain liberties had to be taken, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless. I appreciate how faithful the script is to Agatha Christie's original story. Hickory Dickory Dock is a solid, but not spectacular, entry in the long running Poirot series. It's up to Poirot to bring a killer to justice. And Poirot's fears are confirmed when one of the students living in the boarding house if found murdered. But what Poirot sees is something far more sinister than Miss Lemon could have imagined.

Miss Lemon asks her employer, the great Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, to look into the matter. A ring, light bulbs, a rucksack, a lighter, a stethoscope, a shoe - there seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of it. 7.5/10 Bethany CoxĪ series of random, seemingly insignificant thefts at her sister's boarding house has Miss Lemon quite agitated. All in all, solid mystery but doesn't rank along the best. And the students had great personalities and well developed on the whole, particularly Damian Lewis as Leonard. The acting was very good, David Suchet is impeccable(I know I can't use this word forever but I can't think of a better word to describe his performance in the series) as Poirot, and Phillip Jackson and Pauline Moran do justice to their integral characters brilliantly. The plot is complex, with all the essential ingredients, though not as convoluted as Buckle My Shoe,and in some way that is a good thing.

The darker moments were somewhat creepy, this was helped by one of the most haunting music scores in a Poirot adaptation, maybe not as disturbing as the one in One Two Buckle My Shoe, which gave me nightmares. However, I loved how Hickory Dickory Dock was filmed, it had a very similar visual style to the brilliant ABC Murders, and it really set the atmosphere, what with the dark camera work and dark lighting. I also thought there were some slow moments so some of the mystery felt padded.

The adaptation isn't without its problems, there were times when the humour, and there were valiant attempts to get it right, was a little overdone, and the events leading up to the final solution were rather rushed. I confess I have not read the book, despite being an avid Agatha Christie fan. Hickory Dickory Dock was a good Poirot mystery.

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