The ITV series of television adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories starring the Great Detective Hercule Poirot.
And we mean it adapts all of the Poirot novels and short stories. All of them. David Suchet portrays the titular Belgian detective, and his performance is generally regarded as the definitive version. The series ran as hour-long episodes on ITV (UK) and PBS (US) from 1989 to 1993, with sets of feature-length specials running in 1994, 1995, 2000-1, 2003-4, 2005-6, 2008-9, and 2010. The final set of stories was released in 2013, just missing Suchet's original intention to do all of them before his 65th birthday in May 2011.
The adaptations have a long Start to Corpse time, sometimes up to half an hour. This is consistent with the original works: Agatha Christie herself rarely began her books or stories with the discovery of a body, and we frequently meet the victims while they are still alive.
The complete series was out on DVD and Blu-Ray in Europe on 18 November 2013, five days after its finale, and it's been released in the United States as well: Seasons 1-6 (in the Early Cases Collection) were released on 23 October 2012, followed by the rest of the series (Seasons 7-13) in the Final Cases Collection, released along with the Complete Cases Collection on 4 November 2014.
The only Poirot story they didn't adapt was the play Black Coffee (later novelised by another writer, not Christie). In 2012 Suchet performed a rehearsed reading of it in aid of Chichester Festival Theatre's restoration fund, checking the very last Poirot story off his list. note
A recap page is in the works; please add trope examples for particular episodes there.
