If you’re really digging deep, you’ll remember him as the beleaguered politician Jack Lithgow in the 1989 miniseries Traffik and the star of Bill Forsyth’s 1984 movie Comfort & Joy. Who and in Little Dorrit on Masterpiece Classic. “The Pale Horse” brought with it two familiar faces (well, familiar to me at any rate) that I never tire of seeing: Bill Paterson and Susan Lynch.īill Paterson on Law and Order UKPaterson is someone I’m betting you’ll recognize no matter what your viewing tastes he starred in Law & Order UK, he’s been on Dr. This is delightfully different from the special guest star syndrome that plagues American episodic TV, because in Miss Marple everyone’s a special guest star and everyone’s in the frame. The faces are so very familiar from British TV series and films-especially other TV mysteries-that it feels like a visit with old friends. Holly Willoughby as Goody Carne in The Pale Horse episode of Masterpiece Mystery’s Miss MarpleĮvery episode of Miss Marple (and Poirot, and Inspector Lewis and just about anything you’ll see on Masterpiece Mystery) is a great big game of “Where have we seen him/her before?”. (She is normally the effervescent hostess of Dancing on Ice and This Morning.) She seems tickled to be part of the production, and even if I don’t know who she is, I think I can guess why she’s famous.

Jonathan Cake, whom you’ll recognize as Chuck Vance from Desperate Housewives if you watch it (I don’t), looks in his element here.Īnd the costume Holly Willoughby wears in her brief appearance as Goody Carne makes me think that her casting is something of an in-joke. Pauline Collins as Thryza Grey, the “proprietrix” of The Pale Horse inn looked like she could barely contain her glee each time she invaded Miss Marple’s personal space. Although I was fond of Geraldine McEwan’s portrayal, Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple is growing on me. Jonathan CakeMaybe it was my own relaxed state of mind when I was watching the show, but I had the sense that the cast were enjoying themselves on this one. Miss Marple is fun, and this mystery-even with its added characters and plot changes-is a goody. But in the case of “The Pale Horse,” I was willing to go along for the ride and I suggest you do, too.

Normally, I’m a stickler for accuracy and I don’t approve of screenwriters taking too many liberties with the original text, especially if they’re messing with a master like Dame Agatha. For, if you’ve read the book, you know that Miss Marple isn’t in it.

But you probably already guessed that when you saw that “The Pale Horse” was a Miss Marple episode. Miss Marple at The Pale Horse from Masterpiece MysteryPurists take warning: If you’re looking for a faithful adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse, this week’s Masterpiece Mystery wasn’t it.

The pale horse marple