Review of And Then There Were None

This is a very watchable adaptation, but any Christie purist should find there are some arbitrary modifications to the story for no good reason. Most of them can't be explained as necessary adaptations for translation to the screen. Some of them are relatively inconsequential, and a couple might even be enhancements Dame AC would have endorsed (such as the play on the "bee sting" that has always struck me as a weak point in the book, which Christie even seems to acknowledge in the epilogue); but other changes did nothing to improve the story and some arguably weaken it. Namely, one of the elements of the book that makes it so intriguing is that the prior sins of those being picked off on the island have some element of moral ambiguity, or at least uncertain culpability. Turning some of those into blatantly cold-blooded crimes takes away from the murderer's motivation of serving justice for crimes "the law couldn't touch" for various reasons. Anyone who's not a purist won't be phased, and the series is worth watching. Good production value and great cast.