Having enjoyed all 4 episodes of the first season of ITVs Marple, 'Sleeping Murder' was something of a disappointment. This was the first in an irritating trend to try and 'flesh out' the stories by packing in as many unnecessary and confusing subplots as possible. I didn't mind at all the relatively subtle changes to the stories in Season 1 but here there were one or two too many.
Taken on its own terms, I actually enjoyed most of it until about the last twenty minutes. Having introduced the Funnybones, the writers then had to give them all their own subplots hence the 'lets all gather in the drawing room while Miss Marple tells us all about it' ending. I was very irritated by the entirely pointless confusion over the true identity of Helen and the whole Indian subplot but then these adaptations seem to like starting with 'some incident in the past' and in this case, the Indian subplot was 'it'.
On the plus side (and the reason for 6 out of 10) it was generally well acted and, as always, looked gorgeous! Sophia Myles was something of a shining star as Gwenda - really lovely and impeccably acted. Phil Davies was an improvement on his BBC Hickson counterpart as Dr Kennedy in my opinion.
Overall, the Hickson version of the story is better but this one does have some merit - watch it for Myles if for no other reason.
Taken on its own terms, I actually enjoyed most of it until about the last twenty minutes. Having introduced the Funnybones, the writers then had to give them all their own subplots hence the 'lets all gather in the drawing room while Miss Marple tells us all about it' ending. I was very irritated by the entirely pointless confusion over the true identity of Helen and the whole Indian subplot but then these adaptations seem to like starting with 'some incident in the past' and in this case, the Indian subplot was 'it'.
On the plus side (and the reason for 6 out of 10) it was generally well acted and, as always, looked gorgeous! Sophia Myles was something of a shining star as Gwenda - really lovely and impeccably acted. Phil Davies was an improvement on his BBC Hickson counterpart as Dr Kennedy in my opinion.
Overall, the Hickson version of the story is better but this one does have some merit - watch it for Myles if for no other reason.