Stanislaus

The Veiled Lady is one of the most humane cases in which even a great detective tries his hand at being a "criminal", but in a positive sense. The result, then, is an imaginative game of disguises and role-playing that keeps the suspense (and humour) from beginning to end. It was amusing to see Poirot without his traditionally groomed moustache and still riding his bike, plus I liked the slightly tweaked musical theme.

Peril at End House, as the first feature-length Poirot film starring David Suchet, particularly benefits from a supremely complex story in which the word plot takes on its true meaning, as it was a properly convoluted and intricate case during which the grey cells of the brain had to work at full steam to catch a very cunning perpetrator. For me personally, one of the best cases for the moustachioed Belgian.

The Dream is definitely the most accomplished, most playful and best-constructed case of the first series, benefiting especially from a well-thought-out plot, and it's really a shame that it's one of those 50-minute episodes, as this one could have carried a feature-length running time. In addition to that, I was amused by the typewriter storyline.

Personally, I found the plot of The King of Clubs a bit too convoluted, and as far as the unraveling of the case is concerned, I was surprised by the final “crime-not crime” verdict (the initiated know what I'm talking about). In this case, the source material is mostly to blame, as the adaptation wasn't bad at all. I'm always really amused by how out of touch everyone except Poirot is, to the point where it sometimes too blatant.

The Incredibly Theft stands out from the Poirot cases in that there is no murder, and it is essentially a spy chase after a robber (spiced up with Nazis) rather than a detective story in the true sense of the word. And it's these "classic" whodunits with a murder, its subsequent solution and the discovery of the killer that I prefer. Thus, for me as a viewer, The Incredibly Theft stays in average waters, even if the ending is not exactly a bland affair.

After Triangle at Rhodes, the plot of Problem at Sea remains in exotic locales, and at times it evoked the atmosphere of Death on the Nile. This time Poirot is investigating the murder of a supremely nasty woman who could have been killed by anyone. I must commend the well-chosen setting, the building of atmosphere and the tension that was sustained from the crime to the final denouement, which took the form of a public presentation of Poirot's methods to the passengers.

For once, the mustachioed Belgian sets off for the remote island of Rhodes to the sounds of an oriental-tinged theme tune, with a love triangle playing the biggest role. I enjoyed the change of locations, the unconventional serving of action and the not-so-obvious identity and motive of the perpetrator, even if it was slightly pulled out of thin air.

The biggest problem with The Third Floor Flat is that the viewer has almost no chance to participate in the search for the perpetrator, as Poirot manages to uncover him within a few minutes and almost half of the running time consists of a chase between the police and the criminal on the run, which is unusual in this series, but I prefer cases that keep me in suspense until the final minutes.

Like The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly, Four and Twenty Blackbirds is a rather mediocre whodunit in which the obvious identity of the perpetrator and, to some extent, the predictability of the plot is a stumbling block, especially due to the smaller cast of characters and the (possible SPOILER!) "badly done make-up" (end of possible SPOILER!).

In terms of plot and perpetrator, it is a rather poorer and considerably more predictable Poirot case, who aptly described it as a farce that he was getting tired of. As a result, this is a mediocre whodunit that doesn't have a chance to build enough suspense when it is clear from about halfway through who is behind the "crime".