It’s time for a closer look at the two TV adaptations of The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie. Last week, we broke down what sets this novel apart from a very structurally similar predecessor. Unlike prior books in the series, The Moving Finger centers non-Marple characters and their community. (It could serve as a standalone about how the Burton siblings came to love the country village of Lymstock.) Five elements – the narrator, the victim, the villain, the police, and Miss Marple herself – combine to create a community-oriented cozy mystery. This week, we’ll see how two adaptations – the BBC’s and iTV’s – each tackle these elements, and the impacts of their choices.

Before we break each down separately, there is one choice that both adapters made: expanding Miss Marple’s presence. In the novel, Miss Marple comes into the story relatively late, in the latter third. This highlights her expertise, as she’s able to come in as an outsider and solve the case relatively quickly. This reflects Christie’s perspectives on the best way to write the character – in the preface to The Thirteen Problems, she calls out that Miss Marple does best in a short story format, solving mysteries “from the outside”.

However, both TV shows are named after Miss Marple and feature prominent billing for Miss Marple’s actress. It’s reasonable to assume that audiences might be confused if Miss Marple seems to disappear from the story entirely. So both introduce Miss Marple to Lymstock from the start, albeit with slightly different approaches that we’ll cover below. (Spoilers ahead! TW: mentions of suicide related to the iTV adaptation)

BBC: Too much of a good thing

The BBC’s adapters wrest the story away from the Burtons and re-center it on Miss Marple. The focus of the story shifts to Miss Marple’s investigations, with the Burton siblings’ stories becoming B-plots at best. In part, they manage this by “smoothing out” the wrinkles in the Burtons, who now have a more heroic backstory. They also focus on the Burtons’ romantic entanglements – rather than their investigation. The police investigation is also played for laughs, with all eyes on Miss Marple to crack the case.

This may make for a better Miss Marple story, but it loses the community charm of the original. “Smoothed-out” Burtons mean the denouement loses its impact; a more charming and heroic Richard, ironically, makes it easier to spot him as the murder. And by focusing so early on Miss Marple instead of the village, we re-center on an outsider. In essence, we lose the community ties that bind the original story together.

1. The narrator: the “Squadron Leader”

The BBC’s adaptation team chose to elevate Jerry Burton, giving him a more heroic backstory. No longer is Jerry a flighty city boy, who crashes a plane and has to retreat to the country to recover. Instead, he’s a war veteran, with a war nurse sister to care for him. The Burtons are attractive, pleasant, and straightforwardly likable – although not that exciting as characters. When they get an anonymous letter, you may feel outraged on their behalf – but you lose the slight undercurrent of nastiness that accompanies the anonymous missives in the novel. Here, the Burtons are so blandly kind that it’s impossible totally dislike them – and impossible to watch them develop.

2. The victim: tense but forgettable

Ah, “Angela” Symmington. In the BBC adaptation, Elizabeth Counsell plays her as a quietly unpleasant woman who clearly dislikes her daughter. Instead of the confused frustration that the novel’s Mona feels, Angela demonstrates a simmering loathing for Megan. You get the feeling that she’d rather “disappear” her own daughter in a heartbeat. Where Mona seemed to love her husband, Angela borders on indifference towards him (and everyone else). You could feel pity for Mona in the novel, but Angela is more clearly an antagonist who thwarts Megan’s development.

This Angela is strangely both hatable and forgettable. While it’s not clear who would want to to kill her, it’s entirely possible that others dislike her. And while the forgettable aspect mirrors Christie’s book, this new personality messes with our understanding of the denouement. When reading the novel, it was easy to feel pity for Mona, who was murdered just as she found peace. The BBC’s Angela, however, elicits no such sympathy.

3. The villain: Heroic – unbelievably so

Where Angela became less likable, Richard Symmmington became the village hero. In his introductory scene, his secretary gushes, “He’s simply marvelous. Very patient, very kind, simply wonderful with people.” Between Miss Finch (the secretary), Eryl Griffith (the erstwhile Aimée), and his own children, we get to see many different faces of Richard – all adored.

Perhaps this change was intended to make Richard more surprising a villain. The characters treat the discovery as a huge revelation – and it increases our pity for Eryl when he frames her. Unfortunately, as a somewhat cynical mystery buff, it had the opposite effect on me. Richard’s perfection made him too clearly a Person of Interest – either a victim or a villain. When he survives his wife, it’s hard to see how anyone else could possibly have killed her, ruining the tension of the big reveal.

4. The police: Slack redux

We are finally spared Inspector Slack in a BBC adaptation (I was getting quite tired of this character). Unfortunately, he lives on in spirit, with Miss Marple simply finding a new constabulary to outwit. In the novel, Superintendent Nash serves as a generally competent source of facts about the case. Unfortunately, the BBC were not willing to let go of this source of mediocre humor . The adapters instead persist in making this new police force as confused and incompetent as the last.

As I’ve written about before, this does not make us think that Miss Marple is clever. This is a great example of the Police are Useless trope, where officers are too incompetent to address crime. If this becomes a consistent pattern (rather than a one-off), then we increasingly decide that the police are either dum-dums, or willfully bad at their jobs. (This has become such a common theme throughout the BBC adaptations that, for the rest of this series, we can just assume that the police are horribly adapted unless otherwise called out.)

5. Miss Marple: the star of the show

Miss Marple is clearly elevated and highlighted in this adaptation. She enters the story earlier and does most of the investigating herself. This obviates the Burtons entirely, with the story instead playing like an investigative A-plot with romantic B- and C-plots.

As a general story structure, this could work fine. As an adaptation, it’s a failure in a number of ways. The Moving Finger, as a novel, is first and foremost about two siblings coming to love country life. Miss Marple merely helps that story come to fruition, serving as an “avenging angel” brought in by her local friend. Moreover, because the story centers on the Burtons, we get to meet each of the characters as people – not suspects. Having Miss Marple investigates from the get-go reduces that community focus in favor of a plot-driven approach. In effect, these choices make the story a Miss Marple mystery – but a less cozy one.

iTV: descent into darkness

Ah, iTV. One broad trend I’ve started to notice is the the BBC tends to adapt plot beats, while iTV errs on the side of adapting theme, plot beats be damned. They’re okay with moving the constraints of the written novel in order to elevate the emotional and thematic core of each work. In this version, that means they focus on the Burtons’ story of integration into Lymstock,a dn establishing the importance of the broader community. A great example of this is Mr. Pye.

In the novel, Mr. Pye is queer-coded (cruelly so – Mrs. Dane Calthrop compares his virility unfavorably to a lobster). Both the BBC and the iTV teams picked up on this, and he’s portrayed as LGBTQ+ in both adaptations. But the iTV team takes it one step further, introducing an entirely new story element by giving Mr. Pye a lover. This does a little for the mystery (mainly by adding a red herring), and a lot for the community. Through Mr. Pye, we understand what it means to be an outsider in Lymstock. Through him, we understand the impact the poison-pen letters can have on the psyche. And his grand revelation of the affair gives us insight into each character via their reactions – we can learn who’s accepting, and who’s intolerant. From a pure plot adaption standpoint, Mr. Pye is amiss – but he adds to the thematic consistency of the work.

Of course, this works because the iTV team are often great at thematic consistency. They choose to keep the focus on the Burtons’ story and enhance its themes of redemption and integration, twisting the same characters very slightly to achieve this effect.

1. The narrator: dark but redeemable

iTV’s Jerry Burton is a much darker version of the character. We start with scenes of him drinking, in bed with an unknown woman, and generally quite depressed. Rather than a failed test flight, Jerry crashes in a motorcycle accident – in a clear act of attempted suicide. This Jerry is at rock-bottom, and Joanna is clearly willing to do anything to pull him back up.

Thematically, this is a much more compelling version of the story. We see Jerry at his worst, and we see him become engaged with village life. Moreover, we understand the role of the mystery – and his attempts to solve it – in his healing process. The story stays Jerry’s, with Miss Marple cheering him on throughout. When he drives off with Megan at the end, it has the same spirit as the closing scene of the novel – a jubilant celebration of their forthcoming life together.

2. The victim: unpleasant – but enough to murder?

Like the BBC, iTV decided to make Mona obviously unpleasant. Unlike the BBC, the iTV committed to the bit, portraying Mona as shallow and gossipy and unlikable in all ways. Mona’s nosiness creates an implicit motive for murder – after all, who knows what she found? – but perhaps not the most convincing one.

Mona’s unpleasant vibe serves two thematic ends: it establishes Lymstock as a place of intrigue, and elevates Megan as a protagonist. Having Mona know – and share – all the gossip shows that there are interesting secrets to find (and also that it’s possible for one person to find them all). As for Megan, Mona’s nastiness increases our sympathy for her character, and her admiration for her spirit. Here, again, the changes serve the Burtons’ narrative, establishing their interest in Lymstock twofold.

3. The villain: kinda creepy

This team took the exact opposite approach to adapting Richard Symmington – where the BBC went heroic, iTV went creepy. The camera crew shoots Richard in uncomfortable close-ups, and multiple shots establish both his interest in Elsie and her lack of reciprocation. And his lack of redeeming qualities make it even sadder when Aimée’s long-distance adoration is revealed (and taken advantage of).

Assuming that you’re not distracted by all the other anonymous letters, it’s pretty easy to guess that he’s the murderer. But unlike the BBC adaptation, which is trying to prioritize the puzzle, this doesn’t really matter in this version. This adaptation is all about the emotion and the themes, and we can ride the emotional wave even if we can guess the outcomes. In some ways, it even creates dramatic irony that makes it more satisfying when we’re right.

It’s an interesting contrast, because in neither version is the murderer actually well-hidden. As Miss Marple points out, if you assume Mona’s death is a murder, there’s really only one possible culprit. And neither version is inherently a better idea – both versions serve as great sources of tension (especially as the heroism takes on a very creepy undertone as he tries to kill Megan in cold blood). Yet the BBC’s Richard lands awkwardly because his character mainly serves as a plot device, while iTV Richard serves the broader narrative. This makes the former stick out like a sore thumb, and the latter “blend in” to the story being told.

4. The police: only medium-useless

The police here are slightly useless – but much less so than their BBC counterparts. Mostly they’re a little dull, but certainly they’re methodical and earnest and serve as a reasonable source of facts for our various protagonists. They’re generally doing all the right things – staking out the women’s institute, collecting evidence and testimony – and don’t stick out as horribly incompetent. While they don’t solve the murder, that’s almost a foregone conclusion in these stories. My notes contain almost no thoughts about Superintendent Nash and his subordinates – and that’s as it should be.

5. Miss Marple: sage and supportive

While Miss Marple enters at the start, she’s ostensibly in Lymstock to mourn Colonel Appleton. She gets to know the villagers before there’s any notion of murder, and quickly integrates herself into the community. Miss Marple only shows up at reasonable times in the story rather than actively inserting herself into he narrative. Not only that, the story allows Jerry to do his own sleuthing, including the dream scene and the following one where Miss Marple praises his intuition.

This version of Miss Marple, while certainly a protagonist and an active participant, is happy to drive Jerry’s love story forward. As in the novel, she supports him and Megan in uncovering the truth – and in realizing their affection for each other. This Miss Marple is content to observe, and support, and intervene only when it seems there is no other choice. She’s more engaged with various elements of village life and the community – and that makes her a more real person, not just a famous amateur detective.

What makes a cozy mystery compelling?

So we have two reasonably faithful adaptations – certainly ones that convey the same information and plot beats – that somehow thematically differ quite significantly. The BBC version is pretty individualist, focusing on Miss Marple’s investigation and “sassing” up her character to emphasize her role as a detective. The iTV version, in contrast, leans collectivist, with a Miss Marple that focuses on the community impact of her investigation. Where the BBC diminishes the Burtons’ redemption and integration into the village, iTV centers it, to the point where Jerry is equally important as Miss Marple.

From an adaptation standpoint, each of these teams has different answers to the question: What makes an English village murder compelling? Is it about the mystery-solving itself, with audiences enjoying the dogged pursuit of a lone amateur investigator (à la the BBC)? Or is it about the ambience, the themes, the community of the village and its response (à la iTV)? Is consistency between episodes important, with viewers coming back to see familiar, comfortable characters in familiar, comfortable roles? Or is it more important to tell compelling stories, even if they involve different stock roles than prior episodes?

I certainly enjoy the iTV versions better – I like the variety. I’ve been watching these in quick succession, and the BBC movies can get a little samey as Miss Marple plays the same role in each new context. But the BBC versions were released months apart from each other, and it’s possible that the character consistency was a critical part of their appeal.

Next on the Miss Marple list, we will read A Murder is Announced. I’m excited for this one – it’s a memorable story, and widely regarded as one of the best Miss Marples. And then I’ve got some holiday surprises in the works, which I’m eager to get to. Until then – stay cozy, and stay curious!