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tv_talk2024-08-26 01:17 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote in tv_talk2024-08-26 01:17 pm
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Mystery Adaptations: Less is More?
There was a recent discussion about whether one's preference is always for the first instance of a canon you've experienced -- the first show in a verse, or a book vs TV show or vice versa.
I know that I've mentioned before that I preferred the Inspector Lynley TV series over the books even though I read the books first. However this has a lot to do with what I'm looking for in a mystery.
For example, with the Lynley stories, while I found the first two books of interest in setting up Lynley's life and that of those around him, as the books went on I got impatient with them. For me, a mystery is best when it's 90% mystery and 10% characterization of recurring characters. I don't want the characters to be automatons, but I also am not interested in their family lives or a lot of musing and pondering and angst.
I also have next to zero interest in exploring the temporary characters in a story. I figure we learn all we need to as a process of figuring out whodunnit. But the author of these (rather lengthy) books seems to want to be a literary writer who turned to mysteries as a more marketable option. The last book I read about Lynley, I ended up skipping past pages and pages of stuff that was fairly irrelevant to the overall story but was like a detailed description of a setting, only for a character. I just didn't care about their internal life.
The TV series goes a bit too far the other way, in that it cuts out several recyurring characters in the books who, however tangentially, do have an intersecting arc. I also thought it really miscast Helen and Havers compared to who they were in the books, which means removing or changing a lot of the contrast between Havers and Lynley or even Helen and Lynley.
However it also has the characters appear in a bit of a bubble. For example, in the episode where they are investigating the death of a famous cricket player, in most stories I would expect to see the pressures put upon the investigating team to wrap up the case because of public attention. We do see a few scenes where the press are harassing the family. But we see nothing of Lynley's superiors, or of him and Havers working with anyone else in the resolution of the case. This is in stark contrast to many other series where there are a variety of other groups of professionals consulted and the investigators may even be working on more than one case at a time.
The way that Lynley can interact with Helen in the workplace also seems remarkably isolated. I imagine part of the issue is reducing a long book to the essentials to keep a story moving. These could easily have been 2 or even 3 part stories. But I think it's also an issue carrying over from the books themselves, where Lynley seems to have a remarkable amount of free reign over his schedule and his work.
To contrast this with another set of adaptations, I can't say hardly any TV or films of Agatha Christie's stories were necessarily better than the books, although some were just as good. For example, I quite liked the most recent adaptation of And Then There Were None. I also thought that the Poirot series captured many things well, and I liked the original Murder on the Orient Express film and was somewhat disappointed by the Suchet version.
However I didn't care for the adaptations of The Pale Horse or the recent Murder is Easy. For me Pale Horse was just too moody and dark. Compared to the book, which I am currently re-reading, it doesn't move along as well and seems to have found its hook in atmosphere rather than the storytelling itself. The same seems to be true for Murder Is Easy. On the one hand I found it somewhat fascinating to watch how the underlying theme of class differences in the original book get expanded to colonialism and racism in the TV adaptation, and then even more broadly to who does or doesn't have power in societies. To do so, there were several significant changes that had to be made, though nothing that directly affected the details of the original mystery.
However the way that the mystery was told was really flattened. Having re-read the story not that long ago I was struck by how we were just walked through murder after murder (this might have been the book with the most dead bodies, though several occurred before the story began). It was like the original story served as a background for character confrontations and the hitting of themes. While they tied this to the murderer and the rationale for the deaths in a reasonable way on paper, it just felt hollow and rushed. Part of this is the lack of time we spent with the character and partly just because there was so much else going on.
As a side note, one of the things I have been amused by in reading Christie's works in order is how from her earliest novels she often describes things (usually decor and clothing) as "modern", even though what counts as "modern" changed so much across decades! I always got the sense that the term was meant mostly in contrast to the Victorian period, which was the previous generation for Christie.
Thus what stood out to me about Murder Is Easy is that it is set in the 1950s in the show, yet the original theme of classism would have been most relevant in the 1910s, much earlier than Christie wrote it (but over 10 years earlier than the TV series setting). It seems to me that the 1950s are the new 1920s when it comes to TV adaptations, with a lot of earlier period pieces set in this later time. Perhaps it's because there is a more modern sensibility in terms of dress, behavior, language, and issues by that time that are still recognizable today.
This leads us to the changes made for the Murder miniseries. Unfortunately I think that this ended up being a case where the audience was not trusted to see the themes themselves in the telling of the story, with the result being that it was like we had two stories, one layered over the other.
I know that I've mentioned before that I preferred the Inspector Lynley TV series over the books even though I read the books first. However this has a lot to do with what I'm looking for in a mystery.
For example, with the Lynley stories, while I found the first two books of interest in setting up Lynley's life and that of those around him, as the books went on I got impatient with them. For me, a mystery is best when it's 90% mystery and 10% characterization of recurring characters. I don't want the characters to be automatons, but I also am not interested in their family lives or a lot of musing and pondering and angst.
I also have next to zero interest in exploring the temporary characters in a story. I figure we learn all we need to as a process of figuring out whodunnit. But the author of these (rather lengthy) books seems to want to be a literary writer who turned to mysteries as a more marketable option. The last book I read about Lynley, I ended up skipping past pages and pages of stuff that was fairly irrelevant to the overall story but was like a detailed description of a setting, only for a character. I just didn't care about their internal life.
The TV series goes a bit too far the other way, in that it cuts out several recyurring characters in the books who, however tangentially, do have an intersecting arc. I also thought it really miscast Helen and Havers compared to who they were in the books, which means removing or changing a lot of the contrast between Havers and Lynley or even Helen and Lynley.
However it also has the characters appear in a bit of a bubble. For example, in the episode where they are investigating the death of a famous cricket player, in most stories I would expect to see the pressures put upon the investigating team to wrap up the case because of public attention. We do see a few scenes where the press are harassing the family. But we see nothing of Lynley's superiors, or of him and Havers working with anyone else in the resolution of the case. This is in stark contrast to many other series where there are a variety of other groups of professionals consulted and the investigators may even be working on more than one case at a time.
The way that Lynley can interact with Helen in the workplace also seems remarkably isolated. I imagine part of the issue is reducing a long book to the essentials to keep a story moving. These could easily have been 2 or even 3 part stories. But I think it's also an issue carrying over from the books themselves, where Lynley seems to have a remarkable amount of free reign over his schedule and his work.
To contrast this with another set of adaptations, I can't say hardly any TV or films of Agatha Christie's stories were necessarily better than the books, although some were just as good. For example, I quite liked the most recent adaptation of And Then There Were None. I also thought that the Poirot series captured many things well, and I liked the original Murder on the Orient Express film and was somewhat disappointed by the Suchet version.
However I didn't care for the adaptations of The Pale Horse or the recent Murder is Easy. For me Pale Horse was just too moody and dark. Compared to the book, which I am currently re-reading, it doesn't move along as well and seems to have found its hook in atmosphere rather than the storytelling itself. The same seems to be true for Murder Is Easy. On the one hand I found it somewhat fascinating to watch how the underlying theme of class differences in the original book get expanded to colonialism and racism in the TV adaptation, and then even more broadly to who does or doesn't have power in societies. To do so, there were several significant changes that had to be made, though nothing that directly affected the details of the original mystery.
However the way that the mystery was told was really flattened. Having re-read the story not that long ago I was struck by how we were just walked through murder after murder (this might have been the book with the most dead bodies, though several occurred before the story began). It was like the original story served as a background for character confrontations and the hitting of themes. While they tied this to the murderer and the rationale for the deaths in a reasonable way on paper, it just felt hollow and rushed. Part of this is the lack of time we spent with the character and partly just because there was so much else going on.
As a side note, one of the things I have been amused by in reading Christie's works in order is how from her earliest novels she often describes things (usually decor and clothing) as "modern", even though what counts as "modern" changed so much across decades! I always got the sense that the term was meant mostly in contrast to the Victorian period, which was the previous generation for Christie.
Thus what stood out to me about Murder Is Easy is that it is set in the 1950s in the show, yet the original theme of classism would have been most relevant in the 1910s, much earlier than Christie wrote it (but over 10 years earlier than the TV series setting). It seems to me that the 1950s are the new 1920s when it comes to TV adaptations, with a lot of earlier period pieces set in this later time. Perhaps it's because there is a more modern sensibility in terms of dress, behavior, language, and issues by that time that are still recognizable today.
This leads us to the changes made for the Murder miniseries. Unfortunately I think that this ended up being a case where the audience was not trusted to see the themes themselves in the telling of the story, with the result being that it was like we had two stories, one layered over the other.
Poll #31782 Mystery Adaptations
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7
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