Day 191: Poirot, The Kidnapped Prime Minister

Show: Agatha Christie’s Poirot

Episode Particulars: S2EP8, “The Kidnapped Prime Minister”, original airdate February 25^th, 1990.

 Summary: Poirot is called in by Sir Bernard Dodge (Ronald Hines), a member of the British government, because there’s an international crisis brewing. The Prime Minister was on his way to France for a conference where the issue of Germany’s rearmament is going to be discussed, but he disappeared shortly after arriving in France. Furthermore, someone attempted to assassinate him in England, when he was on his way to the station. Poirot is happy to help, although he seems more interested in the attempted assassination than in the actual kidnapping, to the frustration of pretty much everyone. Of course, that just means that the attack has more significance than the others are giving it credit for.

Standalone Thoughts: This is another episode where, if you’re savvy of the tropes, you’ll at least suspect the correct answer to the mystery pretty much from the start. While that sometimes can lead to you just waiting around for everyone else to catch up, it isn’t necessarily a problem if the episode lays out the clues in clever ways and shows you exactly how it was done. On the whole, I’d say this episode does a decent enough job of that, although a few of the facts are kind of withheld from us until convenient and others are just kind of dropped into the conversation without a proper lead up. But opinions may vary on if those are fair or not, so I won’t judge them too harshly.

Two things really stand out for me in this episode, and one of them is Poirot’s behavior. Depending on how you interpret events, he seems to be taking a perverse delight in annoying Sir Bernard. Bernard keeps bringing up the urgency of finding the Prime Minister and how much time they have before the conference, but Poirot keeps casually continuing the investigation of what appear to be pointless details, without telling anybody what he’s thinking or even offering much in the way of reassurance. I don’t know if this was present in the original story or was just included to pad out the episode/keep the mystery going, but it seems a little out of character for Poirot. Sure, he’s vain and clearly relishes being smarter or quicker on the uptake than most people, and he’ll play things close to the vest sometimes, but when something this big is at stake, it doesn’t feel right that he’d be this secretive. Since there’s no explanation given for his behavior, the best I can come up with in-universe is that Poirot resents Sir Bernard for some reason, but I have no earthly idea what that reason might be.

The other thing is one of the techniques they used to stretch the episode length to fifty minutes. Instead of character development or a running theme (like the magic tricks in “The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim”), the crew just decided to show us characters walking. Either it’s a static long shot as the characters walk across a hall, or it tracks the characters as they walk down flight after flight of stairs (though at least that one was bolstered by having the characters discussing the case with each other). There’s also at least two lingering shots of a telephone as Poirot waits for an important phone call, interspersed between shots of a semi car chase to try to ratchet up the tension. While this can be frustrating, in the right, lightly mocking frame of mind, you could get some amusement out of it. Poking fun at it will make the padding feel like it’s going by faster, after all, and will provide a little extra entertainment besides.

Number of Tropes Followed/Subverted: We got a decent amount today; 4/15 tropes and one subversion. One is a spoiler, but we’ve definitely got cases of “Coincidental Comment”, “The Spy Who Killed Me”, and “Playing Fair”. The subversion, as suggested by the title, is “There’s More to Life Than Murder”, since while the Prime Minister could potentially be dead/killed, that doesn’t seem to be the active intent. You could also argue a subversion for “Stopped Clocks are Wrong”, but while time is a factor in the episode, precise timing never really comes into play, and therefore I’ll mention it but not count it as a form of compromise.

Other: *Speaking of using walking to pad out the episode…the first time this comes into play is when Poirot visits Sir Bernard and learns about the Prime Minister’s kidnapping. He’s taken through a government building that’s full of marble floors and tall columns just as the clock strikes noon, the only sound the chiming of a clock and the click of shoes on marble. It’s a striking scene, hampered slightly by the fact that other than Poirot and his guide, there is nobody else in the halls. Unless they’re all huddled in various rooms in a panic, trying to figure out what happened to the Prime Minister, this seems unlikely, especially at noon. Never let reality get in the way of a good shot, I guess.

*Based off of dialogue, the Prime Minister’s last name seems to be something like McAdam. I asked a WWII buff I know, and he said that the Prime Minister in 1935-36 definitely wasn’t named McAdam. So Poirot takes place in an alternate universe, apparently, one of those mundane ones where very little changes except the names of the people in charge. Then again, I’m not sure how much WWII comes up in this series, so maybe there were bigger changes than it first looks…

*When Poirot shows reluctance to get on the boat to go to France and investigate the scene of the crime, Hastings suggests it’s because he gets seasick easily. Which once again leads me to wonder why this didn’t come up during “Problem at Sea”. While I’m generally not paying attention to continuity, things like Hastings’ love of driving and golf have been consistent throughout the episodes, so I would have thought they’d do something similar with this. Then again, we have no actual proof that Poirot gets seasick, so we’ll just have to wait and see if that ever pops up again.

*I had a moment of intense confusion during the episode when Poirot goes to speak to one character. This is because the number on the door was a 10, and the location looked very familiar. So for a minute, I was convinced that he was visiting the Prime Minister’s house at Number 10, Downing Street, and was baffled by how easily he was let inside. A Google search after the fact revealed that Downing Street’s doors are black with white trim instead of the other way around, so I guess that location’s just been used in other shows before, hence my recognizing it. In hindsight, I’m not sure if that confusion helped or hurt my investment in the episode.

Most Interesting Character: Although I wasn’t entirely sure initially about choosing this character, I finally decided to go with;

Imogen Daniels (Lisa Harrow)

The reason for my initial hesitation is that, while her dialogue in her first scene was the sort of sharp wit I like, it also seemed like the writers were trying too hard to make the lines witty and punchy, so it all just felt sort of…calculated. Some of her later scenes are much more interesting though, and reveal that she’s got conviction and nerves of steel, things that are especially refreshing to see in female characters. Plus, pinstripes look awesome no matter who’s wearing them, so that was a nice little bonus.