Agatha Christie's Poirot worst episodes are the ones that are unfaithful to the novels

Recently, I have been rewatching some of the episodes of the beloved TV series and found out a non-complex pattern. A very simple one actually. Usually, the episodes that are extremely close to the book are considered to be in the line with the best episodes of the show. While conversely, the episodes that take major liberties with the novels are inferior. I could say that most of the episodes are considerably faithful to the novels. The notable examples will include The ABC Murders (almost word-for-word), Peril at End House, The Hollow, Death on the Nile, Sad Cypress, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, Five Little Pigs, Mrs. McGinty's Dead, Dead Man's Folly, and obviously Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (and some others).

In this review, I wanted to go through the episodes that are usually considered to be weaker within the series (MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOTH BOOKS AND TV SHOW BELOW):

The Most Inaccurate episodes that almost have nothing to do with the original books besides the title:

The Big Four. This infamous episode is known for butchering the original work with the screenwriter Mark Gatiss snobbishly calling the original novel "unadaptable mess". My personal opinion is that he himself is a shitty screenwriter in the first place considering what happened to Sherlock BBC. I highly disagree with him on this occasion, because contrary to the opinion of the majority (and the opinion of Agatha Christie herself), I think that The Big Four is one of her best books. Yeah, as simple as that. This novel stands out to me as the most action-packed and most fast-paced novel that never loses its consistency. I loved every mystery and every plot twist in this novel and really wished to see the cinematographic version with David Suchet and Hugh Fraser teaming up against the epic evil.

But time has passed, all of the screenwriters were seemingly reluctant to adapt this novel. I understand that the novel has so many expensive set pieces and action scenes with an unusual variety of locations. I think that this novel itself could have been made into its own miniseries because it spans so many events. It was due to the fact that the novel is actually a compilation of several previously unrelated short stories. But the way how Lady Agatha blended them together is simply genius and I never felt that the story is disjointed.

The episode of the final season is just a dwarfed version of the novel. I could say subjectively that 90% of the book content was simply cut. Some new characters are needlessly added and some are spared of their death. But the most infuriating thing is the change about the Big Four evil organization. Mark Gatiss decided to simply make almost every member unguilty of their crimes and just load up everything on Claud Darrell. He is just an obvious and blatant carbon copy of Moriarty. The villain that was sinister and mysterious from beginning to an end in the novel? Nah, let's just make him into another villain who did his villainies because of a woman.

After so many years, Hastings, Miss Lemon, and Japp are coming back! Yay! But wait... they are barely in the episode? Seriously, why did they decide to make Japp the assistant of Poirot while in the novel Hastings was with Poirot all the time? Why Miss Lemon has screentime like 1-1.5 min? If you are reinventing the novel altogether then do the changes for the better! This is why the long waited comeback feels so underwhelming. The obvious insult is the ending where Poirot reunites with his friends, saying Mon Ami, Mon Ami! And then the episode just ends. Bravo! Encore! Why not have some time with them together? Just a short dialogue, Poirot hasn't seen them for a really long time? Instead, everything is left for off-screen shit. Overall, even if Gatiss has cut the 90% of the novel, the episode still feels convoluted and contrived. And means that the novel is simply not one episode type. The reunion of our beloved sidekicks is heartwarming but then is underwhelming overall because of poor execution.

The Labours of Hercules. This episode suffers a similar problem of the Big Four. They once again blended so many plots into a SINGLE episode. The original book has 12 short stories and 12 (!) fucking short stories are now just butchered and mixed up. It is fair to say that only 2 or 3 short stories were adapted. Other stories only got microscopic references. Hercule Poirot clearly had courage and flame in his eyes in the original book. But in here, David Suchet feels so tired and not caring. I disliked the portrayal of Countess Vera Rossakoff. She was made into a vulgar and tactless woman. Needless to say that she isn't Russian or doesn't even try to impersonate such. Again, 90% of the book content is simply cut, and instead, we have a bunch of unrelated stories happening in a mountains hotel. The plot easily became convoluted and hard to follow. Because the stories being unrelated, characters seemingly don't know of each other's existence. The villains were bland and the denouement wasn't satisfying at all. Does the episode work on its own in separation from the book? Obviously not. It seems more like the book was adapted in order to have a tick in the box of David Suchet about "adapting everything". Besides, the episodes have many problems with the special effects, because the mountains are all looking fake because of the green screen. There are no notable performances and even Suchet's Poirot doesn't rescue this disaster. Wish they never adapted this book at all.

There is an explanation of why both of those episodes are so terrible. It was reported in 2011 that the Poirot TV series struggled to have finances which is why they just rushed to finish the series. It is clear that David Suchet wanted to do justice with the book canon, but unfortunately, he couldn't do anything with the plans of ITV, nor he could influence the screenwriters. Wikipedia says that all the major literary works (novels) were adapted. But I hardly can say that Big Four is even adapted in the first place. The episode has almost nothing to do with the novel and the same with The Labours.

The next thing is the short stories where the episodes were 50min. Many of those episodes are inaccurate to the short stories (like from Poirot Investigates or Poirot's Early Cases), but I accept those changes because the short stories were usually simplistic (and uhm.. short) and the screenwriters tried to embellish the plots and expand them. There are goods and bad, but none of them come close to the level of Big Four and Labours.

Then I want to mention some episodes that are close to the books overall but have some substantial changes. I won't go into details about them.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd once got a lot of backlash for mishandling the great plot twist and having many changes about the novel. The complaints are totally understandable.

Murder on the Orient Express is noticeably darker in comparison with the novel. It got some critical reviews because of the unnecessary somber mood and added tragedy. But aside from that is mainly criticized for adding Poirot's religious struggles. Poirot was never known to be particularly fanatical Catholic. Neither he is known to be highly moralist. Saying things like murder is the most horrible sin or something like that. The real Poirot is more or less indifferent about this and only goes to expose the murderers without moralizing shit. If they wanted to explore and deepen his character, it's not the way to do it.

Cards on the Table starts pretty faithfully, up until the half, where it suddenly changes everything. Colonel Race is replaced with Hughes (couldn't they just bring James Fox back from Death on the Nile? Was he too expensive?), and more importantly, Superintendent Battle is changed to a completely different character, Wheeler. He became one of the suspects. And the changes about the killer are just plain ridiculous this time. In the original novel, Dr. Roberts killed Shaitana, because he knew about his murderous past, meaning "he knew too much". But now Shaitana is a suicidal addict which doesn't make any sense. More importantly, this episode adds some gay porn to Agatha Christie's work (literally)! Yay! Dr. Roberts is now a closeted gay man that killed Mrs. Craddock, not Mr. Craddock because he constantly had sex with him of which Mrs. Craddock warned to expose! What a twist! Now Wheeler is also a gay man that had sex with Shaitana or something! And Shaitana had some gay porn photos with a starring role of Wheeler! What a twist! Double! But wait for it... Rhoda Dawes is now a villain that had romantic feelings for Anne Meredith and which is why wanted to kill her! Triple! Anne is now an innocent nice girl and Mrs. Lorrimer is now her mother! Why? The answer is why fucking not? You may think that I'm homophobic but I'm totally not! If you want to make LGBT-related movies with gay porn, then go for it. Just don't label it Agatha Christie's Poirot. If Lady Agatha's novel never included queer characters (Cards on the Table particularly) it means that they never belonged in them and never needed for the overall plot. In Agatha Christie's novel everything is perfect and totally makes sense and NEVER ridiculous. After reading the above-mentioned changes that I wrote, don't you think that it's at least sounds absurd? Was there any reason to do so? With this single episode, the whole legacy of this TV series is in fact just tainted and could be further noted as just shitty fan fiction. Those changes about the character orientations sound really like fanfic shit. Five Little Pigs also made a change to the character's orientation, but it wasn't glaring and made sense in the overall plot.

Appointment with Death is also very inaccurate to the novel and has so many changes that it's hard to list them all. Almost all of the characters are changed. The motive of the murderer is completely different. They also added an extra murderer! Several characters are absent and several are added for no reason. There are also some added subplots that once again just convolute everything whilst the original novel was totally consistent. The only good thing is that it was filmed in a real archeological place.

Taken at the Flood simply fails to understand the whole message of the book and also makes many unnecessary changes. David Hunter is now a murderous psychopath-bomber that planned the bombing of Cloade's house. Now the story involves incest! Yay! The original novel's denouement was elegant and fitting. A war rocket was fired to the house (UNEXPECTEDLY) and only David with the maid were the survivors. David took the opportunity that was given to him by fate! This is very important. This is why the novel is called Taken at the Flood. David is an opportunist, he adjusts to the situation he currently is in and he decides to impersonate that maid as his sister in order to have the whole inheritance for himself. And then he just kills her. But Rosaleen is spared in this adaptation, which is again stupid. But more importantly, David has PLANNED the bombing, which alleviates the whole meaning of the plot. Besides, the motive is completely different. He genuinely felt something towards his sister. Why vulgarize everything and relate everything to sex? Just to be edgy, to make the TV series "dark"? This again says a lot about the writers who are mostly just shitty immature fanficers that think of sex themes making their TV series more serious and dark. Also, there is a plot hole. Scotland Yard always knew that it was bombing, not gas explosion. What? How? Nevermind.

In conclusion, I wanted to say that unfortunately, nothing is perfect. I really love this TV series and wish those worse episodes never existed. There is a lot of praise for David Suchet's character, but it is also important to add that he mishandled the portrayal (sometimes) with all these religious things and being too moody. I don't know whether it was his invention or of shitty fanficers. Or maybe the finances were coming from Catholic Church? Who knows. I think that he should have come against this about his character. It is untrue that they adapted "all the literary canon", Black Coffee and Lemesurier Inheritance were left off the boat for some reason. I must admit that in the case of Agatha Christie, I'm a hardcore fan. I must admit that I'm a purist & orthodox about any adaptations. My opinion is that nobody should be allowed to make major changes to her works and nothing should be changed. As ever, we should just come to terms with the truth and simply accept it, no matter how inconvenient it is.

P.S. Kenneth Branagh's version of Orient Express is a piece of shit