This episode kicks off a four part adaptation of 4:50 from Paddington which has one of the best high concepts of any of the Marple novel. An old friend of Miss Marple’s is on a train journey when another train, the 4:50 from Paddington Station briefly runs alongside on a parallel track. Through her train window, the woman believes she sees a murder take place on the other train. This episode is able to actually give Mabel a lot to do, because there’s a young woman in the novel that the series able to basically replace with Mabel. Once the amateur detectives think they’ve figured out where the body was thrown from the train, Mabel goes undercover as a new maid working in the mansion on that estate. A lot of times Mabel just kind of hangs around in the background, but I really liked the way this episode (and this four-parter as a whole) really foregrounded her and let her have her own scenes and things to do. This is a great story and this episode sets up things nicely for what looks to be one of the better adaptations of the series, if they can keep this quality up. 4 stars.
tl;dr – series finally gives Mabel a lot to do in this excellent opening chapter of an adaptation of one of the best Marple novels, 4:50 from Paddington. 4 stars.
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