(Mini Series) Agatha Christie's Seven Dials - A Pretty Entertaining Adaptation of Lesser Known Agatha Christie's Characters

This series was already promoted by Netflix for quite some time and being major fan of Agatha Christie's novels, I would not want to miss another adaptation from her works. So when it was finally released yesterday, I immediately gave it a try and finished it last night. All right then, let's just get on with it.

Brief Story Line

In the year 1925, Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter - Enola Holmes 2, Ocean's 8 etc) and her daughter Lady Eileen aka Bundle (Mia McKenna-Bruce - Vampire Academy TV series, How to Have Sex etc) hosted a gathering at the request of Sir Oswald Coote (Mark Lewis Jones - Apostle, Gangs of London TV series etc) and Lady Maria Coote (Dorothy Atkinson - Pennyworth TV series, Saltburn etc). During this party, there were plenty of guests including George Lomax (Alex Macqueen - Downtown Abbey: A New Era, Holby City TV series etc) from the Foreign Ministry along with his subordinates Gerry Wade (Corey McIchreest - Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story etc), Ronny Devereux (Nabhaan Rizwan - Kaos TV series etc) and Bill Eversleigh (Hughie O'Donnell - Fight or Flight etc). There was also the wealthy Jimmy Thesiger (Edward Bluemel - Persuasion, Killing Eve TV series etc) and few others.

Unfortunately on the following day, one of the guests was found dead, but after an inquest, it was ruled as suicide. Bundle who did not believe it, tried to find out more which led her to something referred to as Seven Dials. While investigating, she encountered Inspector Battle (Martin Freeman - Black Phanter: Wakanda Forever, Sherlock TV series etc) from Scotland Yard who also suspected something. Things gotten complicated when another person was later killed.

So what actually happened and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, I am a major fan of Agatha Christie's novels and I believe I have read almost all of her works (my wife and I even had nearly all of the books written by her). However, I got to be honest that I have no memory at all of what the premise of the series and it did not have two of Christie's most famous characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. So I watched this without any knowledge except with the confidence that it should be good. 

While watching this series, I found myself to be enjoying the story and I like the lead character Bundle & subsequently Inspector Battle. Mia McKenna-Bruce seemed to be perfect for this role as she looked so confident of herself, intelligent, charming and truly persistent that make everybody around her just could not say No. As the story progressed, I did feel that this was quite light and the mystery solving was not that complex. Not sure if it was because I slowly remembered the story from the novel or it was simply due to the case was not too difficult to deduce. Although, there was a final twist that I did not see coming.

The biggest surprise to me about this series was when I found out it only had 3 episodes with around 50+ minutes. Not sure why they decided to make it into a mini series as opposed to just one single movie of less than 2 hours duration. Only reason I could think of is they might want to see if this is a major success and renew it in future. The ending certainly opened up to such possibility (which was a deviation from the novel). The series itself was created by Chris Chibnall (creator of Broadchurch TV series and showrunner of Doctor Who TV series) and all episodes were directed by Chris Sweeney.

The series had a large British ensemble cast. In addition to those above, there were also support cast such as Iain Glen ( Silo TV series, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter etc) as Lord Caterham, Nyasha Hatendi (Alex Rider TV series etc) as Dr. Cyril Matip, Ella-Rae Smith (Into the Badlands TV series etc) as Loraine Wade and several others. What I admired about this series was the wonderfully done period setting and the appearances which looked really from the 1920s. Got to hand it to the production team particularly make up and costume department (I believe they were supported by huge budget as well). Another thing that I truly enjoyed was the dialogues that were just wonderful. The conversation sounded so smart with the brilliant use of comprehensive vocabularies and words that made me so much in awe.

Despite all the things that I liked above, I did feel something missing, i.e. the usual complexities of the whodunit mystery which I would usually find in Agatha Christie's works. I probably need to read the book again just to do a more in depth comparison with this adaptation. Although I did read that Christie herself said the book was one of her light-hearted thriller type, so it should explain the distinct difference. Nevertheless, I still find this to be pretty entertaining and a nice enough change of style. Not sure yet about the majority's view of the series as of the time I wrote this post, but early critics reviews looked promising though audience seemed to be more divisive. So if you are in the mood for something different from the usual totally character driven investigation, then you might enjoy this latest adaptation from Agatha Christie's lesser known protagonists like I did.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars