What makes it different from others?

not as good as all the hype

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The key for taste this serie , in my case, was to ignore the portrait of Miss Marple created by Agatha Christie. because each actress in this role, gives her nuances and colors and accents to it. so, the war was between Geraldine Mc Ewan and Julia McKenzie. both are admirable. the difference - maybe the manner to define the character. in the case of lady McEwan , the good intention was the lead aspect. the hard try to give to her character consistence. the result was decent and honorable. Julia McKenzie propose, maybe, a more familiar version. more comfortable. and , at first sigh, more inspired.

I'm a lover of all A C's works,and enjoyed this with the exception of the portrayal of Miss Marple by Geraldine Mcewan. For me she brings absolutely nothing to the wonderful character that is M M. She succeeds only in making everybody else in the play seem exciting and interesting. So many actresses have bought their own particular take on Miss Marple. e.g Julia Mackenzie- warm,humorous, Joan Hickson-stern,forthwright. But you could be forgiven for assuming that Miss Mcewan is the deceased! And yet does seem to never receive any criticism for bringing nothing to what is a wonderful character that a lot of actresses would delight in playing.Sorry to speak ill of the dead but that is my overwhelming feeling. I've never seen Miss Mcewan in anything else to pass judgement on and do not have a grudge. But needed to say this as almost in a state of disbelief about this.

I don't like the Geraldine McEwan series because of the changes that are made to cater to modern ideals don't fit into the era in which the books are written.In this series, so many of these books are changed to have homosexual TV characters which had they been modern stories would be permissible but they are n't modern stories. These are 1930's - 1950s stories and the characters aren't even in the books. Some of the TV stories are just completely changed by this. In fact, My friends renamed 'The Body in the library' as 'The lesbians in the library' ! The Sittaford Mystery suddenly has the two women go off together to Argentina! Why add this when it isn't even in the books? Agatha Christie is superb and can stand alone without any character and plot changes . Leave these stories how they were meant to be, how they were actually written. Don't introduce or change the sexuality of characters to cater for modern viewers.It changes the feel of the book.Awful.

Geraldine McEwan was a young looking 70-yr-old woman when she started making this series. For this part she was trying to be older which is all too obvious. She also speaks in a most peculiar and affected way; as though she is trying to put on a crusty accent but failing to do it without looking as though a great deal of effort is involved. It all adds up to terrible acting which could be forgiven were other actors pulling their weight. Unfortunately this is not the case. There are many "guest actors" (putting it politely) throughout the series who come from other backgrounds. Russ Abbot is a terrible comedian but a truly dismal actor and almost the same can be said for Dawn French. The whole series is rife with "jobs for the boys" (and girls) and this does Agatha Christie's stories a gross injustice. Don't bother with this series. It is absolutely abysmal. Yes, production techniques had improved by the noughties and yes... there are many lush flashback scenes that one doesn't find in earlier adaptations but this is not enough to make up for the sheer lack of any acting worth its salt. Instead of wasting time watching this series I'd urge anyone to watch the 1980s production instead with Joan Hickson playing the main part. It may be a bit dated but it's full of real actors who take a pride in their profession rather that egotists who are all trying to steal the limelight at the same time.