I need to preface this review by stating that I have been watching the various Agatha Christie mystery series for as long as I have been aware of television, and Miss Marple is a childhood favorite. The new Miss Marple played by Julia McKenzie is much more like Joan Hickson's Miss Marple (in my humble opinion, the ultimate Marple) than Geraldine McEwan's, who had the role for the first three seasons of the new series. McEwan's Marple always seemed a bit too odd and slightly off her rocker, rather than the sharp old woman portrayed in the books. McKenzie isn't quite as much of a wolf in sheep's clothing — she can hardly mask the intelligence in this character, but she does at least come across as sane.
McKenzie has the sharp intellect down, but she's missing the sweet, old-fashioned lady part of the character. I will cut her some slack, though, as the writers and directors carry part of the blame. Only two of these four stories originally featured the iconic character, so she had to be inserted into the plots by those who themselves may not have a full understanding of the complexity of the character. Still, after so many years of filming these stories, you'd think someone would have raised a flag or two.
The first episode, "Murder Is Easy" (screenplay by Stephen Churchett; directed by Hettie Macdonald), handles the "insert Marple here" well, relatively speaking, and in fact is a very good re-telling of the story in film form. The story begins with Miss Marple sharing a train car with a woman who is quite upset over some deaths in her village that she believes to be murder and is on her way to Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, she "accidentally" falls down the escalator at the train station and is killed. When Miss Marple sees her obituary in the paper, she picks up the scent. Meanwhile back in the village, a young man who recently settled there begins to question some of the events himself, and it's no surprise that Miss Marple makes him her assistant when she arrives in the village to investigate. Soon we meet a cast of characters with so many back stories and red herrings that it's almost a surprise when the murderer and motivation are reveled. I say almost because the clues eventually point to who, but the why remains unclear until the reveal.
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