Watched 4.50 from Paddington. As enjoyable as the Poirot series is, except for one thing as far as I am concerned: Miss Marple looks like Brother Cadfael in drag, her hair is too grungy and looks like she just stepped out of the shower, she acts like an obsessive-compulsive Mother Superior and quite unlike how she is described in the books, and her eyes look like Yoda's. Did the producers feel obliged to match Poirot's flamboyant eccentricity? Because, as the author mellowed, the point was to recede into the normalcy of everyday characters.

The image of Miss Marple I have is that one on the covers of all the Dell paperbacks that came out in the 50s and 60s. In fact, the publishers must have commissioned that back-cover portrait to somewhat look like Agatha Christie herself: more of a prim lady and less of an old woman trying to act like an adolescent boy. Set a decade or so after the Poirit series, the Marple series comes closer in time to the modern era--and closer in time to the author's persona. There is minimal art deco, no chinoisserie, the costumes and hairstyles and make-up are all one generation ahead of the setting, but, of course, there are the usual, lovely tea services.