271. Web-series Reviews – 107

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Agatha Christie’s Marple – Ran from 2004-2013.  A total of 23 stories in 6 seasons.  Based on Dame Agatha Christie’s crime novels and short stories, this show followed the adventures of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in the quiet little village of St. Mary Mead. During her many visits to friends and relatives in other villages, Miss Marple often stumbles upon mysterious murders which she helps solve. Although the Police are sometimes reluctant to accept Miss Marple’s help, her reputation and unparalleled powers of observation eventually win them over.

Trivia

The twenty-three episodes of this series are adapted from Dame Agatha Christie's twelve feature-length novels featuring Miss Marple, two Miss Marple short stories, and nine feature-length novels that do not feature Miss Marple in them at all.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

I was absolutely gutted when the BBC regained the rights of Agatha Christie from ITV, there were still a few stories that could have been done to feature Miss M, The Seven dials mystery being one.

It's a very difficult series to rate, because the productions ranged from awful to wonderful. Why didn't they ask Evans and The Sittaford Mystery being the low points, with brilliance coming from the likes of The Blue Geranium, A Murder is announced and The Moving Finger.

Adaptations ranged from fairly accurate, A Pocket full of Rye and A Murder is announced, to wildly re written, Nemesis perhaps being the most altered.

They weren't afraid to add Jane Marple to Christie books where she hadn't appeared, in some cases it worked brilliantly, The Pale Horse and Greenshaw's Folly being about the best.

Initially we had Geraldine McEwan, pretty different to the character from the book, but cheeky with a sparkle, and a spry sense of humour. McEwan was unable to return for series 4, so Julia McKenzie was cast to take over. McKenzie was more accurate to the character in my opinion, and when the writing was good, she shone, wonderful in both The Pale Horse and Blue Geranium.

They seemed to take a few risks when it came to casting, we had Elaine Page, Griff Rhys Jones, Harry Enfield, Lisa Stansfield, all actually worked brilliantly, cast against type. The performance highlights came from Zoe Wannamaker, Sharon Small, Shirley Henderson and Fiona Shaw. The only time I felt the acting was in question was during 'Evans,' for that one I blame the script and poor direction.

Glorious scenery throughout, I loved the house that was used as Miss Marple's residence, such a pretty place. The period detail was spot on so many times, in terms of outfits and styling they nailed it, Bertram's wasn't my favourite adaptation but it's a beautiful looking episode, the sets and clothes are sumptuous.

The music was a little overdone at times, more so in Series 1, but a lot of the time it was enjoyable and melodic, The Body in the Library and Murder is Easy being better examples.

You need to watch these adaptations with an open mind, purists of Christie's work are likely to watch with unease. The acting throughout the series was excellent, it was the writers and producers that made the episodes great or poor.

People will always compare these adaptations to the BBC's, I did myself, but try to enjoy them without the comparisons, there'd have been no point making them identically, so plaudits for trying something different, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

My Take – Worthwhile watch.  I saw only those stories that were not there in the earlier Miss Marple series that I saw.

 

Perry Mason – Ran from 1957-1966 with a whopping 271 episodes in 9 seasons!! Perry Mason is an attorney who specializes in defending seemingly indefensible cases. With the aid of his secretary Della Street and investigator Paul Drake, he often finds that by digging deeply into the facts, startling facts can be revealed. Often relying on his outstanding courtroom skills, he often tricks or traps people into unwittingly admitting their guilt.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

Perhaps the most successful formula show in the history of TV. An interesting question is why, since the lead characters never varied, the outcome was predictable, and the plots could at times defy expert analysis. To me, that sounds pretty boring. So why did I faithfully watch the first runs and still catch the reruns when I can, and why did the series catch the fancy of so many others as it still does. Here are some conjectures.

Mason, Street, and Drake are more than a team-- they are a family. The chemistry among them is so good it's almost spooky. Burr's Mason is nothing if not masterful both inside the courtroom and out. He's a strong father-figure, while Hale's Della Street is the perfect secretary, sweet, attractive and highly efficient. Not quite a mother-figure (after all, this is a chaste family), she's the perfect older sister. And Hopper's Paul Drake is clever, charming, and slightly rakish. All in all, he's the perfect younger brother. Though each is a professional, together they operate as a loyal family unit. And when their final scene rolls around (The Final Fadeout, 1966), we're happy to know they will remain together even though we (the viewers) won't be with them.

The key here is Burr's grasp of character. After all, Mason wins week after week-- he never misses. What's more, he shows up the guardians of law and order week after week. If not done right, Mason would be an easy character to dislike. But Burr's Mason is never smug, never immodest, and always low-key, so we don't resent his near god-like status. This is a real tribute to Burr and the show's producers, who managed to walk a very fine line. There's one other character point worth noting. Mason's personality is the only one of the five (Burger and Tragg included) to alter. In the early episodes, he smokes, wears loud jackets, and occasionally flirts. But with the show's success, he's transformed into a paragon of virtue, probably because his character has come to stand for the quality of criminal justice in America. Shrewdly, the producers would take no chances with their golden egg.

The engaging quality of the stories varies little, an unusual feature for any formula show. That's likely because the script-writers worked with variations on six or seven basic plots. After all, they had to come up with thirty-plus mysteries every year for nine years. And each episode had to have a plausible list of suspects with a story line to unravel, which is a pretty heavy load. Then too, each entry had to have a larger than average cast of capable actors as suspects. Watching the re-runs, we see just about every familiar face from that era (one of the joys of catching the re-runs). Executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson deserves a lot of behind-the-scenes credit, since I'm sure this was not an easy series to put together week after week.

I had never thought of the show as film noir. But other reviewers have correctly pointed this out. Indeed, there are elements of noir in many of the first half hours, where the mystery sets up. Many of these were done in shadow, with strong emotions and a heavy atmosphere of doom, which distinguishes the series. For, overall, there was very little noir from any series during that sunny era. Frankly, it's that part I always enjoyed more than the courtroom scenes with their high-key lighting and extended dialogue. The general excellence of these first half- hours is another reason, I think, for the show's unusual success.

The mystery angle remains an attraction for many. It's fun, for those who want, to try to figure out the culprit. We know he or she will be exposed and the loose ends tied-up by hour's end. But the entries can be enjoyed for their drama alone. The witness-stand confessions served as a chance for neglected feature players to show their acting chops. Some of these were truly memorable. My favorite is from that great unsung actress of the era, Constance Ford. Watch her split personality emerge under Mason's perceptive grilling (The Case of the Deadly Double, 1958). It's a dramatic tour-de-force, as good as anything from the movies of the time. Many of the confessions were also poignant. The culprit could be seen as a sympathetic character, driven to murder by larger forces. And though, the epilogue (usually in Mason's office) often ended on a humorously upbeat note, the confessions remain the dramatic high point.

These are some of my best guesses. I expect there's another, not so flattering reason. Many of us, of course, have a nostalgic attachment to those younger years, which, I suppose, is only natural. Nonetheless, there is something timeless about the brave knight rescuing unfortunates in distress (in this case, usually a shapely blonde or brunette). In fact, the Mason show was predicated on that venerable premise. And even though Mason-as-ideal-defense-attorney would probably not work in today's post-Vietnam era, the key plot elements endure ( understandably, the series ended, just as the war in south-east Asia heated up). Greed, jealousy, ambition-- this is the stuff of high drama, while the Mason show used them effectively inside a format that fit its time. But the elements themselves remain timeless. And in that sense, so does the series.

My Take – Worthwhile watch!  I saw only 15 episodes in season 1 and skipped the rest😊!!

 

Monique Olivier – Accessory to Evil – Came in 2023.  From 1987 to 2003, Michel Fourniret cemented his legacy as France’s most infamous murderer. But his wife was an enigma: Was she a pawn or a participant?

One of the reviews from Decider.com

Monique Olivier: Accessory To Evil is a five-part docuseries that details how law enforcement in France managed to link the country’s most notorious serial killer and sexual predator, Michel Fourniret, to a number of unsolved cases that ranged in timeframe from the 1980s to the early 2000s. The link was his wife, Monique Olivier, but as we find out during the series, her participation in his horrific crimes was more than just that of a submissive woman in fear of her domineering husband.

Opening Shot: A pair of headlights come up over a small hill. As reports of the 1987 disappearance of Isabelle Laville comes over the radio, we see a reenactment of a man driving with an unconscious girl in the back seat of his car.

The Gist: Through interviews with law enforcement and victims’ families, along with archival news footage and reenactments, directors Christophe Astruc, Michelle Fines discuss how the disappearance of young women in France’s Ardennes region in 2000 and 2001 led authorities to an unassuming forest ranger, Michel Fourniret, who was accused of assault when one of his potential victims escaped and identified him.

Because the two teenage girls — 18-year old Céline Saison and 13-year-old Mananya Thumpong — were found in the same wooded region in Belgium, not far from where Fourniret lived, he came under suspicion for both. But even after many hours of interrogation, he didn’t give law enforcement any info that would link him to those deaths.

So the authorities turned their attention to Olivier, Fourniret’s wife since 1989. She seemed like an old-fashioned, very submissive woman who seemed to have knowledge of her husband’s sexual assaults and murders. When she gave enough information to have Fourniret arrested, the killer tried to distance his wife from the assaults and killings, saying she was a frightened wife forced to participate under his overwhelming control. But some investigators had a feeling she had more to say, notions that were confirmed when Olivier admitted that she was an active participant in the abduction of Isabelle Laville.

While Monique Olivier: Accessory To Evil is a pretty straightforward docuseries along the lines of Making A Murderer, though there aren’t many docuseries that talk about the wife of a serial killer.

Our Take: Most of the first episode of Monique Olivier: Accessory To Evil goes over the Laville, Saison and Thumpong cases, and discusses just how tough it was to get Fourniret to admit to anything that he was suspected of doing. Astruc and FInes do a good job of giving viewers a bit of misdirection in the first episode, painting Olivier as this submissive wife who didn’t marry Fourniret for love or romance. The detectives even describe her as “a woman without any notable physical features.”

But the history of the case tells us otherwise; she was a prison pen-pal for Fourniret when he was in prison for sexual assault in 1966, and she voluntarily participated in his crimes once he got out of prison in 1987 — shortly before the disappearance of Laville. The other four parts are going to peel back the layers of the onion of just how complicit Olivier was in her husbands’ heinous crimes, and just how unfeeling she was towards the families of the victims, despite having a son herself.

The final part will also have her participating in a cold case in more recent times, which should be interesting. But the middle three parts of this docuseries will really reveal just how evil Olivier was, even in light of what her husband did.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: 2022. A phone rings, and someone answers it. We hear the voice of Olivier on the other side.

Sleeper Star: No one particularly stands out, but that just means that everyone interviewed gives good information.

Most Pilot-y Line: We wonder if the picture of Olivier being a submissive wife terrorized by Fourniret was something that was a conclusion made more by a patriarchal law enforcement system than anything else. We noticed that all of the detectives interviewed were men. While there seemed to be a few detectives who suspected Olivier was more than just a terrorized wife, there is no digging into the factors that led to that initial assessment.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Monique Olivier: Accessory To Evil paints a horrific picture of a woman who willingly assisted her serial killer husband, making her a fascinating topic in her own right.

My Take – Worthwhile watch!

Cheers till next time😊!!