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Y'all know Agatha Christie's beloved mystery-solving protagonists.
There's Hercule Poirot.
There's Miss Marple.
There's Lady Eileen Brandt.
Wait, what?
Who now?
Well, Lady Eileen may not be as well-known, but she's the star of a new Netflix series called Seven Dials, which features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham Carter.
And while it's got all the familiar cozy Christie, mystery trappings, a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots and lots of secrets, there's something else going on here too.
Something that Netflix hopes will launch, wait for it, an Agatha Christie universe.
I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Agatha Christie's Seven Dials on Pop Culture.
Happy Hour from NPR.
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And I always thought it would be so funny to put in my obituary that I lost my sense of humor in the end.
Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR Wildcard.
Joining me today is Barry Hardiman.
She's a senior editor for NPR's investigations team.
Welcome back, Barry.
It's been too long.
It's been too long.
How are you?
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you.
And rounding off the panel is culture writer Margaret H. Willison, it's also been too long for you.
Hey, Margaret.
Hi, Glenn.
I'm so glad to be back with this crack team of mystery analysts.
I just want to tell you, ladies, I admire your pluck.
I just want to get that on there.
You really can do nothing else under the circumstances.
Absolutely.
In Agatha Christie's Seven Dials, it's 1925 in Britain at a grand old house in the country.
Lady Caterham and her daughter Lady Eileen that's Bundle to her universally insufferable aristocratic chums throw a party where gauche social climbers mix with members of the British intelligence community.
Lady Caterham is played by Helena Bonham Carter and Bundle is played by Mia McKenna Bruce.
What do we think this top secret project is that they're talking about?
Well, if I learned one thing from your dear departed father, it was this.
It doesn't do to ask too many questions.
And that Mara, is the difference between you and I.
The next morning, one handsome young man who works at the British Foreign Office winds up dead.
The death is ruled a suicide, but Bundle is sure that that's wrong because he was about to propose to her.
Her resolve to solve the young man's murder and what it might have to do with seven clocks that were placed on the mantle of the bedroom he died in gets Bundle tangled up in a conspiracy involving a secret formula.
It also brings her into conflict with Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, who tries to waver off the case, although he does respect her pluck—that's where I got that from—.
He's played by Martin Freeman.
Seven Dials is based on an early Christie novel that was not well-received at the time because its looser, action-oriented plot departed so radically from what folks expected of her.
It's created by Chris Chibnall, who created Broadchurch and did a stint as a showrunner on Doctor Who.
All three episodes are on Netflix now.
Margaret, who else could we start with?
Who else, I ask you?
What'd you think of Agatha Christie's Seven Dials?
As someone who has been in a relationship with Agatha Christie since age 10, when my mom brought home my first used Agatha Christie paper book from a thrift store.
That's the way to do it.
I really enjoyed this.
You know she's so adapted and people always face the challenge of sort of like well, how much of this time period detail are we going to preserve?
Because it's part of the charm.
And how much are we going to update?
Because that time period, the values therein don't always align with the values of our time.
There are people who thread this needle successfully.
There are people who thread this needle very poorly.
I would say this is a very successful needle threading, like thoughtful adaptation.
But what's most important is I feel like it really preserves the essence of Christy.
Where we have a lot of hijinks, we have a lot of banter, we have some emotional stakes, but not massive ones, just enough to keep the plot humming.
And the plot hums along and hums along very beautifully.
I feel like it plays well by the mystery of rules, where you're given enough information to come up with all the conclusions yourself, but the final reveal is still a surprise, or it was to me.
Mm-hmm.
For those reasons, I very much enjoyed this.
Heartily recommend it to others and hope it does spawn a Christy cinematic universe on Netflix.
Okay.
Are you down for the CCU, Barry?
Well, in that we are aligned.
There are few better universes that we could spread about the world at this moment.
But let me put it this way.
Everything about this is made for me.
An old manor house, a plucky young heroine, Helena Bonham Carter, tons of gorgeous old time pieces.
I mean, that is really where it was like very specific to like Barry Hardyman.
And I mean literally.
There is a shot of a World War I era trench watch, like in the first five minutes, and it's worth it for that alone.
But I will say that it meant that I enjoyed it.
It doesn't necessarily mean that I thought it was the most successful cozy mystery that I have watched.
And I think a lot of that is partly down to the fact that it's not a perfect Christie mystery.
And in fact, people complained about it when it came out.
It's more of a thriller.
But for me, the mystery itself is a little doesn't quite hang together.
The writers have made some changes to the book and which I say, I know, with great portent.
They've made some changes.
But I think neither is actually a perfect mystery.
I mean, you can go back and trace it and find that you got a pretty good deal from the author or the writer, in this case, of the series.
But there was never a moment where I felt that anyone would have really gasped.
Yeah.
I don't want my gasps to be from the sort of scary thrilleriness of it.
I want my gasps to be from the plot math.
You know what I mean?
And so that I didn't get.
I will say I loved Bundle, loved Lady Eileen.
You know, it is a who's who of everybody.
Helena Bonham Carter is doing what she does in really very fine fashion.
She's dealt some crooked story math herself and I think handles it very, very well.
You know, for me, this is a six to seven dials as opposed to ten dials.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
That's interesting.
We have arranged ourselves, as sometimes we do, along a spectrum.
I'm going to give this three or four dials because look, this worked for me until the very moment it stopped, which is about a third of the way I would say through.
The third episode went on.
I just thought it went all the way off the damn rails.
And so I feel like I'm one of those early critics who are like well, this isn't what I was expecting of her.
Because this isn't what I was expecting of her.
Like, Mary, I'm with you.
When it was serving me, manor house.
My gal, HBC, being snippy.
Rude to the servants.
Hating the commoners.
Will you be joining us for bridge?
Oh, I fear not, Lady Cuter.
Oh.
Why?
It was devised by an American.
On a boat.
This is what I want.
A low back.
When it's given me a guy with no neck who looks like Colonel Mustard, acting like what I expect Colonel Mustard would look like and act like.
Yeah.
A bunch of upper class being upper class twits.
Come on in.
I mean, the dialogue there is fine.
It's kind of diet Jeeves and Worcester, but I think that's what it's aiming for.
Perfect.
Yes.
When it tries to pivot to the action or suspense or thriller genre, which it keeps trying to do.
I just don't think it works.
I do think they're trying to make it a gag, how they're pivoting to it.
Because, like there's this one car chase where, instead of like tires screeching and engines revving, you hear putt putt putt putt putt putt putt putt putt, putt.
And that's just funny.
That's just funny when there's an adorable car chase.
And these guys, you know, these people, these noodle-armed aristos don't know how to fight.
And so they play that up.
If all that stuff is going to be a gag...
Then what am I to make of it when a character gets up on their high horse about the stolen formula costing British lives?
It's like, you know what it's given me?
It's given me Mrs. Peacock and Clue.
Like a lot of our airmen died because their radios didn't work.
It's like, give me that.
And can we talk about this?
I really want to talk about this without actually spoiling anything.
But the secret society stuff is so silly.
There's one particular secret society meeting that is overheard.
Yes.
That is the definition of this meeting should have been a telegram.
Yes.
That's exactly what I said.
That meeting could have been an email.
Yes, absolutely.
They are.
And it's just, it is so funny because they're also, they have like elaborate costumes.
Right.
They have a secret meeting place.
Why did we come together to say this to each other?
Somebody inlaid the table.
Like that's to me, I'm like somebody really went to a lot of trouble.
I think there's Mother of Pearl in there.
Absolutely.
Maybe gold.
Yes.
Maybe.
Yes.
All of that stuff could work if everything around it was lighter funnier crisper faster, punchier.
Faster.
Yeah.
The pacing is, yeah.
Yeah.
It keeps getting bogged down with this emotional stuff that, Margaret, you were talking about.
Like Bundle, keeps telling people that she has to figure out what happened to her little Timu.
Matthew Goode right.
He was a source of incredible comfort for both me and my family.
And he... I was more than fond of him, Ronnie.
This is like a record for a Netflix bloat.
Only three episodes and we got She got all serious about her.
You know she and Rufus Sewell every 15 minutes.
Yeah!
Glenn, you've got to update your references.
What you're meant to do is squint at him and say, is that the guy from Frankenstein?
Is that Jacob Elordi?
Right.
Yeah, there we go.
I got news.
It ain't Jacob Elordi.
But, I mean, I do think that Corey Milkreast has a great career ahead of him of people being –
Yeah.
People squinting.
My question for you both is like what sets this apart from the masterpiece mysteries of the world or any of a million other places?
You could get the mystery stuff that this show serves up without all this franchise building nonsense.
Because right now this is a combination pizza, hot taco bell.
And I don't go to a combination pizza taco bowl when I want pizza.
Yeah.
I want to see more of this because I want to see more of this always.
But I do think you've hit upon a little bit of a problem, which is that, because the characters that we are left with and presumably might carry on to another mystery have only been developed in terms of their barest motivation, as we've just pointed out, there isn't enough for me to want to see them.
You know, like I can't remember what the Thin Man Mysteries are about, but I remember their dog's name.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, sure.
Who could forget Asta?
And this is hard.
I do remember the house's name because that's just my thing.
But I don't remember, there's not enough to really hook into my brain.
And so the lack of character development.
It's almost as though, In their attempts to update this in a way that is more tolerable for modern viewers, they sort of forgotten that you can't just insert a couple of lectures In place of actual human like banter and contact.
And so, you know, I applaud their the history lessons and whatnot.
And what I really want is some a little more banter, a little more whimsy.
And actually what I really want is whimsy, guys.
I mean, how is there not a whimsy?
I mean, we all agree.
I think the primary reason that I am excited is Bundle.
I feel like she really, really worked for me.
And I feel like I agree with the tensions that you guys are citing in terms of like, the degree to which she's like quote unquote traumatized and the way that's worked into the plot.
And also the way that trauma is addressed in the story overall.
I'm going to reference something that I introduced on Pop Culture Happy Hour in 2014.
My first ever Weldonian schema, which is what kind of detective are we working with?
You have two axes.
We go from professional to amateur.
On one axis, and we go from traumatized to impervious on the other axis.
And I would say that Lady Eileen is placed perfectly for me.
Lightly traumatized, right?
You know she has a feeling, but also she's going to make a joke about the subpar IV refusing to hold her as she shimmies down a drainpipe.
And primarily what she is there for is pluckily shimmying down drainpipes, which I would say she does with great aplomb.
Poor the ration.
Very poor glass of ivy.
I did that, another squinting thing, if you're watching one of these British shows.
I was like, Mia McKenna Bruce.
I was like, what have I seen her in?
She played a character I wasn't supposed to like, but I loved the way she played it.
Who was she?
Who was she?
She was in Netflix's wildly ill-conceived Persuasion adaptation.
Oh, yes.
And she was truly one of the only great things about it.
So I was thrilled to see her here.
Getting to use her talents to a better end.
And I feel like moving forward, we will have the freedom to pursue things a little bit more whimsically.
Yes.
Because again, not to spoil things, but you sort of step out of the realm of grounded political consequences and into the realm of Kingsman, let's say.
And I would love to see basically an Agatha Christie-inflected Kingsman-type serial adventure starring Eileen Bundle-Brent.
That, to me, feels like a winning formula.
But I understand and agree with you if what they try to do instead is this thing where they're like well, we're addressing the ills of the British Empire.
But also, isn't this Ivy funny?
And obviously, Martin Freeman as battle, as superintendent battle, could be a very humorless part.
And he does a great job of sort of lacing it with wry humor without betraying the idea that he's sort of a very serious police superintendent with much business to attend to.
What are you doing out here?
Ensuring that no one is about who shouldn't be.
May I ask what you were doing out here?
Me?
Yes, you.
Do you normally exit buildings via the window?
Uh, depends on the building.
He has one piece of acting toward the very end at a moment where he has to show empathy.
I felt he was the right man for the job, you know?
Do you feel they spent their budget well when it comes to their actors?
Agreed.
Right.
That's right.
Truly, I think what we can hope for is that they thought okay, we're going to do the seven dials because we have to do one.
That is like – and hopefully this now gets into the hands of a really creative writer who is able to preserve the spirit of Agatha Christie and do something truly creative and not be sort of bounded in by what they may or may not have felt.
Their loyalty to the original material is.
Right.
And it may be one of these things where we say we look back and say, oh boy, this is such a great series.
You just have to skip the first one, you know?
Yeah.
I think you have a point where maybe a lot of this redounds to the source material, because I do think the mystery in the source material is awfully thin.
When we eventually find out why there are seven clocks of that metal piece, it comes right from the book.
And it's like, what?
That's, what?
That's not, you can't build, you cannot build a mystery around that.
That is so abstruse.
That is not satisfying.
That's the opposite of satisfying.
That's like, nope.
Because that's where some of my anger is coming from.
My other anger is coming from eavesdropping as a plot device, which I forgive in like YA mysteries.
Shakespeare.
Whatever.
Shakespeare, YA mysteries.
Same difference.
No, but like nobody ever tells kids anything.
So the only way kids get information is by eavesdropping.
But, like eavesdropping, depends upon you deciding to climb inside the shift robe at exactly the right place and time.
Yeah.
To overhear what we've already addressed is a non-meeting.
Right.
The meeting is so short, it's so funny.
It's so short and stupid and nothing is said.
Anyway.
Right, right.
All right.
So y'all are in for more of this bundle universe with your snooty, snotty friends.
And more time pieces, and I support the low-backed dresses.
Yeah.
Jazzy.
Music.
I support the ambience.
Production values, great.
Yes.
Great production values.
Casting, impeccable.
See, this is why.
Maybe that's the difference between this and Masterpiece Mystery.
This has a budget.
This has a Netflix budget.
There's some globetrotting here.
Well, also, Glenn, I reject the premise.
How does this differ from Masterpiece Mystery?
Whomst among us said needed to differ?
Right.
I just want more.
No, I know.
But what is the Netflix of it giving?
It seems to me the Netflix of it is giving this big overarching, franchise-y ridiculousness which I think doesn't work.
Well, and in that case I think we're comparing it less against Masterpiece, which can get really great names and has terrific production values, and more against the sort of tier of There are, like BritBox and Acorn, that exist exclusively to cater to people with my appetite and also produce a lot of.
If you made a masterpiece mystery production with a Hallmark Theater budget, right.
Yes.
And like those scratch a certain itch, but not this itch.
This is like, they get the exact spot and you're like, oh, that's it.
Yes, that's right.
All right.
We have arranged ourselves on a spectrum.
How many dials do you give Seven Dials?
Tell us what you think about Agatha Christie's Seven Dials.
Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash bchh.
That brings us to the end of our show.
Barry Hardiman, Margaret H. Willison, thank you so much for being here.
I couldn't have asked anybody else on this particular show.
Thank you.
Thank you, Glenn.
Always an honor to be here.
This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Lattimore, and Mike Katz.
It's been edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy, and Hello Kevin provides our theme music.
And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free.
So please go find out more at plus.npr.org or visit the link in our show notes.
Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.
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