One of the characteristics of the new Miss Marple series starring Geraldine McEwan is the slightly darker, more contemporary take on Agatha Christie's classic whodunits. Dedicated fans have complained about changes the writers have made in this new series, and in some cases, such as a completely different murderer, the complaints are valid. However, they are more tolerable if one approaches the series from the perspective of each script being an interpretation loosely based on the original plotline.
Since there are only four episodes in Series 3, I will go over each of them individually.
"Towards Zero" (screenplay by Kevin Elyot; directed by David Grindley)
The plot is complex, and one cannot describe too much about it without giving away the ending. Neville Strange (Greg Wise) is a moderately decent tennis player and all around good sport. He recently left his first wife, Audrey (Saffron Burrows), and married the flashy Kay (Zoe Tapper). Things are not as perfect as he would like, and for some reason he thinks that getting the two Mrs. Stranges together on holiday at his guardian's home would be a good idea. As you can imagine, things don't work out very well between the two, and in the middle of all that, his guardian's widow, Lady Tressilian (Eileen Atkins), is murdered.
Miss Marple happens to be on holiday at a nearby hotel, and comes over often to visit her old school friend, Lady Tressilian, shortly before her death. Miss Marple's contributions towards solving the crime in the television adaptation were originally attributed to several different characters in the book, one of whom (Andrew MacWhirter) does not make an appearance at all. One of the keys to unraveling the murder is pointed out to Superintendent Mallard (Alan Davies) by Marple, but in the book the Superintendent — named Battle, who is a re-occurring minor character in Christie's books — sees the thing himself because it is something is old friend Poirot would notice.
Purists will be pleased that at least the murderer and the motivations have not been changed, and that the story stays fairly close to the original. The deviances here and there, and the inclusion of Marple, are not distracting.
"Nemesis" (screenplay by Stephen Churchett; directed by Nicolas Winding Refn)
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