The show begins what looks to be quite an ambitious adaptation of one of Christie’s best Marple novels, Sleeping Murder. This book was written and held back by Christie because she wanted it to be the final Marple novel, so, coming late in her career, it has the kind of emotional heft not always found in Christie novels. This first episode is great; it’s essentially Christie doing the set-up for a ghost story and then coming up with a rational non-supernatural explanation. The young woman that is the driving force for this story is, you see, experiencing a repressed memory coming back, a memory of a dead body she saw when she was a very young child. This is, in Marple’s term, a “sleeping murder,” a memory sleeping in her mind, waiting to be reawakened or triggered. So, this is Christie at her most psychological and also, since the murder took place long in the past, this is actually one of Christie’s saddest books, in my opinion. The story is really tragic. And it looks like this show is going to actually do a very serious and thoughtful adaptation. They really knocked it out of the park with this first episode and I can’t wait to see what they do next. 4 stars.
tl;dr – one of Christie’s most psychological and tragic novels looks to get a serious and thoughtful adaptation, if this wonderful first episode is any indication. 4 stars.
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