Agatha Christie's Towards Zero

Screenwriter Rachel Bennette’s script is pacy without being confusing and doesn’t noticeably attempt to crowbar in any contemporary concerns (although the makers claim David and Victoria Beckham provided an inspiration for the public’s fascination with a sportsman’s marriage). Towards Zero is a creamily deluxe entry into the crowded murderer mystery field.

The miniseries is familiarly digestible, but it also feels a little stale — until Rhys shuffles into Gull’s Point, his body slumped under a trench coat, his mood insolent, his performance a jolt of energy.

A three-parter that makes the most of its milieu: The walnut is burnished, the furs are thick, the lipstick is blood red and the opulence is as obvious as the moral offenses. The first episode spends an inordinate amount of time in the courtroom. .... The coalescing takes very much time. But the bodies do pile up.

It is well written and well acted, a romantic distraction from our many modern woes, and like any new Christie adaptation feels like the sun coming out after a long winter. But of all her excellent works, this one is by no means the most memorable.

We must wait until midway into the second episode of three to find whose death is to be solved. Only then does the story work its evidential way back towards the point zero of motive. Thus this Christie feels like a long skip to the centre of an impeccably clipped maze, followed by a long trudge to the exit.

The show opens with a line about how good detective stories start at the wrong place—the murder—when they should begin at the point zero, when the idea for the crime was born. And in trying to tediously embody this idea, Towards Zero falls flat.

While the performances in Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero are worth watching, we get the feeling most viewers who aren’t hardcore Christie fans will be to bored to hang in for the entire 3-hour run.