'Towards Zero's Premiere Scores High in Anticipation

The world of Agatha Christie – spread over dozens of novels and decades of big and small screen adaptations – has such a distinct tonal and structural language that you can spend an entire hour inside one of her mysteries and only clock by the end that the inciting murder hasn't yet been committed. In fairness, this structural oddity is flagged in Towards Zero’s opening moments, where the experienced solicitor Mr. Treves (Clarke Peters) gives his take on murder mysteries around a stately dining table: they always start at the wrong place, the murder, when the killing is the inevitable destination for many twisted, overlapping stories of resentment and betrayal. It’s better to begin by tracing them to their point of origin.

As is now typical for literary adaptations on the BBC, Towards Zero grabs us with flashy style (read: solid, but over-directed and frantic craft) and tantalizing promises of scandal and intrigue. The first (of three) episodes arranges the plot in a way that, yes, builds anticipation for the middle and final act. However, the adaptation betrays Christie’s precise craft by embellishing every character beat with extreme, foreboding melodrama, to the point that we risk being exhausted before anyone ends up dead.

It’s standard for mid-tier BBC miniseries at this point. To make a supersized impression, director Sam Yates (National Theatre Live’s VANYA) borrows camera and editing tricks from cinematic thrillers, which threatens to irritate more than Christie’s storytelling can entertain. Episode 1 brings us many promising beginnings, though.