AGATHA CHRISTIE'S SEVEN DIALS
Starring: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Edward Bluemel, Helena Bonham Carter, Hughie O’Donnell, Alex Macqueen, Dorothy Atkinson, Mark Lewis Jones, Tim Preston, Ella-Rae Smith, Iain Glen, Nyasha Hatendi, Nabhaan Rizwan, and Martin Freeman
Creator: Chris Chibnall
ROBERT
Personally, I got into the BBC model of television with Sherlock, where three mini-movie episodes make up a season (or series, as the Brits say). Whodunits are ripe for this arrangement, so Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials made sense for Netflix as a period miniseries. I am used to Christie novels that usually are confined to one location, but this is a bit more sprawling, fully taking advantage of its settings, arrangement of drone shots, and quirky characters to generate a semi-compelling mystery. It wasn’t breathtaking as it had that PBS Masterpiece Theatre visual effect, but I would consume future stories in this universe if time was allotted.
QUENTIN
I’ve long been a fan of Agatha Christie adaptations, which are kind of hard to mess up, in my opinion. That said, Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials puts that belief to the test. It’s not overtly terrible by any means, it’s just extremely dry and lacking in the twisty reveals that make whodunnits so captivating. Also, weirdly, it often feels like it’s spinning its wheels to fill the runtime while simultaneously needing more episodes so as not to feel so rushed. There just isn’t much to grasp onto here (the characters aren’t interesting, either). Plus, I figured it out almost immediately. You can do better — mystery solved.
