My next Poirot episode to watch was Evil Under the Sun (8.1). Here's my thoughts:
As an adaptation of the book, it does well. (Except they shouldn't have changed Kenneth Marshall's daughter Linda to a son named Lionel--not bc my name is Linda and and I'm upset about them erasing my namesake, but bc a girl works better than a boy in a story with a self-centred stepmother like Arlena. I think bc they wanted the kid to be a suspect and it was a man who strangled Arlena, but there's already plenty of suspects anyway.) However, somehow I didn't like watching it. It's just... bland is the word, or idk.
For starters, Hastings shouldn't be there. And if you're gonna include him, why the heck do you make him a dumbo again, Anthony Horowitz, damn you. He is only there to, once again, fail at something--this time in a restaurant business. He serves no purpose otherwise. Japp is not so out of place bc you'll always need a police inspector (I don't remember whether Japp is in the book or not, but it makes little difference) and Miss Lemon actually gets to do some investigating for Poirot. Like I said once before, she is always competent.
The whole Poirot getting sick and needing a time away at the seaside is stupid as fuck--Poirot likes going on holidays, and he likes his luxury, he'd have liked to go there regardless! Why did they have to make it a health resort, what would someone like Arlena do there?
My biggest gripe is that... it just didn't look good. That may be bc it's not that long ago that I watched the Peter Ustinov film and perhaps it's unfair to compare them bc the Ustinov one probably had a bigger budget, but well, *shrug*. What I like about the Ustinov Poirot films (at least Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, not seen the others) is the glamour. They just look so classy. And you take one single look at Ustinov's EUTS and you're immediately transported to the place, and can almost smell the salt air. But this one, I don't know what it is, but it just doesn't have the right vibe. It's not helped by the fact that Poirot wears heavy dark suits and hats and a pair of black leather gloves--while he's at a seaside resort where people are swimming in the sea. It doesn't feel like summer, if you get what I mean.
Compare the costumes from Ustinov's EUTS and Suchet's EUTS. I think that's the crux of it, the costumes. Lots of white and red in the Ustinov film, especially with Diana Rigg and Maggie Smith.
See the difference between the two Arlenas:
Why would she wear that shade of green??? Someone like Christine Redfern is more likely to wear that.
Ustinov's Poirot was also shown in a swimsuit (of sorts?), and did these little exercises, check out this gifset for a comparison of him and Daniel Craig in Glass Onion (which was clearly inspired by it).
I realise I'm being somewhat shallow, but it's not like I demand anything unreasonable, especially as they have managed to get it right before. Take Peril at End House, which opened the second season of the series (it's a double episode, the first novel they adapted). Freddie's outfits are much, much prettier than anything any character wears in EUTS. And here's our gang in PAEH:
And only the previous episode, Lord Edgware Dies, I was praising for how gorgeous it looked, particularly Jane Wilkinson's outfits. So it cannot be said that they don't know what to do.
Anyway, for a positive--I liked the character of the clergyman, Stephen Lane. Tim Meats played him wonderfully.
