I’m so sorry I’ve been so late to post – the holiday season got a bit away from me… But I am determined to get through this series this year – so expect some catch-up posts!

As we get towards the end of our review of Miss Marple adaptations, I feel comfortable listing some of the most common changes adapters make. These can vary widely in impact, but some more consistently adjust the story’s theme and our perception of Miss Marple. I’ve listed those that come top of mind below, in order of overall adaptation impact:

1. Adding dramatic plot beats, including backstories
2. “Modernizing” the story, often via character adjustments, to better suit current moral frameworks
3. Adding characters for drama – or expanding existing characters’ roles
4. Messing with the police
5. Cutting or combining characters
6. Making the internal external
7. Adjusting the timeline, often so that Miss Marple is at the scene when the murder happens

All the adaptation errors on the top half of this list are, to me, failures of understanding. I don’t think I’ve even seen a Miss Marple backstory that truly made a story more poignant. And while I know that so many viewers love watching Miss Marple one-up the incompetent police, that’s not actually in her character. It’s the kind of stuff that drive a fan to despair.

So, how do the BBC and iTV fare in their adaptations of Nemesis, perhaps the best-loved of the Miss Marple stories?

I’ll start by saying flat-out that the iTV adaptation of Nemesis bears only a passing resemblance to the original story. (Somehow we’re back at Nazis?) The BBC adaptation is a lot closer – but somehow, both adaptation teams still choose two of the same changes. Both give Miss Marple a companion – and both make Michael Rafiel significantly more sympathetic. And together these changes shift the moral framework of Nemesis, altering Miss Marple’s ethical core.

Miss Marple – no longer alone

Let’s get the “smaller” change out of the way first. Both the BBC and iTV give Miss Marple a companion for the coach trip. For some reason, both choose an unlucky-in-love nephew. BBC invents a new nephew, while iTV decides to make Raymond a womanizer (and ignores his canonical wife Joanna). This faithful nephew intercedes on Miss Marple’s behalf, serving as investigative “support”. Effectively, he’s a kind of bumbling Watson to Miss Marple’s Sherlock.

At first glance, this seem harmless – positive even. Watsons often make it simpler to understand the detective protagonist’s true intelligence. They serve a helpful mechanical purpose, supporting the gathering of incidental evidence while our detective gets down to analysis. And in both cases, they provide a structurally clean solution to a shoehorned-in romance plot while trimming the cast list.

But. Nemesis is a story of Miss Marple, and Miss Marple alone. The entire plot starts when Mr. Rafiel, who met her far from home alone, posthumously requests that she take on a case. In A Caribbean Mystery, Miss Marple solved a case far from home, behaving extremely resourcefully to get to the truth – and save lives. It’s this incarnation that Jason Rafiel requests, not a nice old lady who gets distracted by her nephew’s love life.

Mechanically, too, this new character causes issues. Significant parts of the plot in Nemesis require Miss Marple staying somewhere alone, which Mr. Rafiel affects quite simply via his connections. Instead, significant amounts of screen time are wasted watching people negotiate Miss Marple’s schedule on her behalf.

What frustrates me most here is that Nemesis Miss Marple is a force to be reckoned with. When she charges into uncertain situations alone and unafraid, it is impossible not to respect her. These nephews muddy that water, softening a character who doesn’t need it.

Shades of uncomfortable grey

But the adaptation teams didn’t stop there – they also adjusted Michael Rafiel’s character.

Christie writes Michael Rafiel as a criminal. While it’s not actually clear that he killed Verity Hunt, it’s established by multiple characters that he committed several crimes. Mr. Rafiel’s lawyers and other acquaintances make it clear that Rafiel had long since stopped trying to redeem Michael. In fact, we never get to meet Michael in the flesh – and we never hear of any redeeming or softening qualities, other than his love fr Verity. The result is an investigation that focuses entirely on justice, de-emphasizing other ideas absolution that often accompany cold case stories. It’s a cold, clear moral theme…

And one that the adapters are clearly uncomfortable with, as both clean Michael up quite a bit. The BBC starts by keeping Michael out of prison, and adding a plot line following his journey to the Rafiel home. While the character may not elicit sympathy, he’s also never been charged with murder. And at the end of the show, we see him cleaned up, handsome, grateful to Miss Marple. This is not a story of justice, but of redemption, of avenging the unfairly accused.

iTV takes it a step further. Michael is free. Their Michael used to be a German airman (the wrongest of wrong ‘ins!) but falling in love with Verity completely changed him. He literally accompanies Miss Marple on the coach tour and seems a decent, if intense, young man. You want him to be innocent and can invest in him as a character – which is absolutely not the point.

Neither of these adaptations seem comfortable that Book Michael is simply an abstract symbol, a Justice MacGuffin. They must make him likable, relatable, understandable – and in doing so, they twist Miss Marple’s moral core.

Muddling Miss Marple

Nemesis has always stuck out to me as one of the most morally black and white Christie novels. You get some sense of this in A Pocket Full of Rye – but Christie really dials it up to eleven by keeping Miss Marple alone and keeping Michael offscreen. Miss Marple has many faces, but the only one we see in Nemesis is a seeker of truth.

It’s this distinct moral clarity that makes Nemesis such a standout. Certainly it’s not the mystery, which is not much of a puzzle. (The cast list remains so limited it’s hard to hone in on the culprit.) But both TV adaptation teams seem loath to explore that distinctiveness, and you end up with a muddled mess at best and an overdramatic, theatrical dumpster fire at worst.

We are almost done with this series and I’m feeling a bit verklempt about it. Next on the docket is Sleeping Murder – and then we’ll round it out with the latest short stories from modern authors. Based on this year’s deep-dive, I’m sure I’ll have Thoughts.

Until next time – stay cozy, and stay curious!