Meera Lyons Im a fan of Christie books and normally the TV adaptations are quite good, but this is not. The cast is good- I really like McKenzie and you've got some good names there (Natalie Dormer, Samantha Bond, Rik Mayall) but none of them can salvage this mess. Miss Marples hardly in it at the beginning and it focuses more on posh Lady Frankie who's accent 'oh pongo... Yes... Lady Derwent you know' and constant belief she knows everything got on my nerves. The relationship between the two young main characters was not the best in a Christie adaptation- Frankies seemed to treat Bobby often with childish cruelty rather than with chemistry. The ending itself was completely ridiculous, with the murderers constantly pausing to allow Miss Marples narrative rather than actually murdering the person like they had ample opportunity to do, which was clearly forced and unrealistic. And then the two orphaned murderers- one with a sad tale of being forced to 'entertain soldiers' in China- were 'murdered' themselves. The ending was silly and felt unfinished.By all means watch, but be prepared for a rather disappointing end to an hour and a half.

benbrae76 Yet another terrible "Marple" adaptation of a non-Marple/Christie novel. Except that, despite the producers' insistence that it's based on Dame Agatha's novel, it ain't based on Dame Agatha's novel. They hadn't even the decency to tone down the words "based on" to perhaps "as suggested by but nothing like", as once again their hack writers have been encouraged to get busy with the hatchet. If they want to carve up Agatha Christie's great plots into sub-standard ones because they haven't the intelligence to think up their own original plots, that's OK by me, but please...find new names for the characters, and new titles for both the series and the episodes within it...and keep Dame Agatha's name off the credits!!I'm all for exploring characters and making improvements in any plot, but considering that Agatha Christie books (alongside the Holy Bible and the works of William Shakespeare) are the best sellers of all time, and the most ever translated works worldwide, it would seem to me that her original characters and plots don't need either exploration or "improvement". The arrogance of the producers and screenwriters of this series in taking on such a futile and totally unnecessary task astounds me! I can't for one moment imagine that Agatha Christie would approve of this adaptation, nor indeed most other offerings in this dreadful "Marple" series. Neither can I understand those in authority of her estate approving it, so one has to wonder how and why it has been allowed to be screened under her name. Surely the estate can't be that hard up for a dollar or two? So why allow Dame Agatha's genius to be insulted and belittled in this way? The magic of Christie's writing is the simplicity and ease in which she weaved complicated plots with believable characters, which were always solved with logical denouements, not as in these "Marple" adaptations where most plots have been turned into chaos with illogical denouements, and with characters turned into cardboard cutouts, by inferior writers and producers who think they know better than she did.Right from "reel one" there are numerous holes in this implausible new plot, and the actors seem to sleepwalk throughout an utterly tedious script. To combat the tedium however, for the male viewers there is the beautiful Georgia Moffett to drool over, and Sean Biggerstaff and Rafe Spall are suppled for the female viewers. Apart from that there's very little going for this fiasco. One is thankful that the Hickson/Marple adaptations have been preserved, for both posterity and for the sanity of true Christie fans.

suomi_metal After watching this inaccurate, insipid film, I've completely given up on these new Agatha Christie adaptions. "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" was not originally a Miss Marple mystery, and in countless other ways has been altered so drastically that it's hardly recognizable as the same story.I understand that when transforming a novel to TV or film, characters, times, places and events need to be altered, collapsed, edited, etc. for the sake of time and pacing and so on. Fine, we all get that. But it seems as though "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" hasn't been altered for any logistical reasons; it's so far from the novel (which, by the way, is delightful) that they may as well have gotten rid of the last ties to the original plot and just called it a 'new' Agatha Christie mystery. It was successfully done with the Gershwins (in the form of "Crazy For You," calling it a 'new' Gershwin musical). However abysmal those new stories might be, it would probably infuriate infinitely fewer people if they just wrote new stories instead of destroying classics.

hamnh It has taken me a long time to bite down the horrid re-writes of Agatha Christie's books. This series has done many hatchet jobs and made her books into garish, horrible episodes. However, I've accepted this and focused mainly on the visuals and the acting, not the story.With that in mind, I actually enjoyed "Why Didn't They Ask Evans." Yes, there are many issues like the first 30 minutes barely showing Miss Marple at all, and the story re-writes. But that was done to Geraldine McEwan in "Bertrams Hotel", with a created hotel maid summing up the crime. Yes, I have the book and it wasn't a Marple story, but neither were many done in the first three seasons.I do enjoy Julia McKenzie in this role and think she is almost as good as Joan Hickson, who did a superb job. The young actors sleuthing the crime with her were also very good. They kept the actual ending of who was "Evans." The visuals of the English countryside were stunning! And they kept the background music appropriate.