All Rise...

Judge David Johnson voted for Poirot in 1992.

Editor's Note

Our reviews of Agatha Christie's Poirot: Classic Crimes Collection (published June 12th, 2006), Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Definitive Collection (published November 3rd, 2008), Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Movie Collection, Set 5 (published July 21st, 2010), Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Movie Collection, Set 6 (published June 24th, 2011), Great Detectives Anthology (published January 6th, 2011), Poirot: Death On The Nile (published January 3rd, 2005), Poirot: Murder On The Orient Express (Blu-Ray) (published October 26th, 2010), Poirot: Series 4 (published April 16th, 2012), Poirot: Series 6 (published October 4th, 2012), and Poirot: Series 1 (Blu-ray) (published January 5th, 2012) are also available.

The Charge

The flavor-saver.

The Case

The long-running series from PBS' Masterpiece Mystery! scores am HD version that might be overkill. Still, if your grandmother has a Blu-ray player, she might appreciate the extra effort that went into this release of Poirot: Series 2 (Blu-ray)!

Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) is a renowned investigator, famous for his razor-sharp intellect and weirdly sculpted mustache (it appears Poirot ladles on about a quart of Mobil 1 synthetic on his upper lip). He's accompanied by Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser), a laid-back sidekick who's also tall. Nine mysteries on two discs:

• "Peril at End House"
• "The Veiled Lady"
• "The Lost Mine"
• "The Cornish Mystery"
• "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim"
• "Double Sin"
• "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat"
• "The Kidnapped Prime Minister"
• "The Adventure of the Western Star"

Sometimes I joke around with these PBS mystery release as designed with the geriatric in mind, but of all the series I've seen, if any deserves to be categorized as specially-built for that demographic, it's Poirot. This Agatha Christie creation is low-key and plot-heavy, eschewing memorabe characters for layered mystery-slinging. In fact, the most interesting individual on the screen at all times is Poirot himself—who, I have to admit, is an acquired taste. It's that mustache, man. It looks like two leeches in coitus.

David Suchet is good enough at what he's doing to finally win me over and ultimately Poirot became a fun, engaging character. He's unassuming and a bit of a dork, but he's brilliant and outsmarts his adversaries in subtle ways so they end up looking like dolts at the end.

Acorn's Blu-ray set is mediocre, making me unsure of the necessity of HD effort: full frame (1080p), 2.0 Dolby Digital, no extras. Eh.

The Verdict

Not Guilty, but not for everyone.

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