Like most Christie’s fans, a new BBC adaptation is a big event in my year. I was extra excited when I realised that the book chosen to adapt was Towards Zero, one of my favourites, and one of Christie’s more psychology heavy novels.

In the lead up to the release I made the choice to re-listen to the Towards Zero audiobook, just to ensure I was able to be confident on where the adaptation decided to deviate from the source material. Having had my trust irrevocably destroyed by the murderer being changed in the BBC adaptation of Ordeal by Innocence back in 2018, and great big pine forests being put between London and Andover in The ABC Murders (what’s wrong with fields??), I wasn’t leaving any space for self-questioning.

I could write many pages about what was changed from the book for the adaptation, why they might have done so and if it was a good choice or not (in my opinion at least). However, I will instead pick out some highlights, one of which, and potentially the most baffling, is the choice to move the events from September to August. Is going to the beach in September just too much for the viewer when it comes to suspending disbelief? Another questionable change was the need to have Sylvia (the young girl) present in the story, rather than present only in the run up to the main events. Additionally, we see her steal items, meaning her plot purpose (showing that someone might admit to a crime when innocent) in the book is removed, opening a question as to what is her role in the story?

The change of characters is something that I more or less expected, because who can adapt without leaving their own mark on any book? More concerning, is how the plot device of suicide is used in the adaptation. I’ve written previously about suicide in Christie’s writing, and feel that this book is one of the more sensitive and nuanced takes on what might cause someone to end their own life and, even more so, what the aftermath of this might be should it not succeed. MacWhirter’s narrative explores this in a way shows this shift in Christie and society’s approach, but just as importantly, his suicide attempt is crucial to the plot – it’s not remotely gratutous but explains his presence at Gull’s Point, gives him insight into one of the main characters and leads to the unravelling of the murderer’s plans. If this can be achieved in 1944, then it is all the more concerning that so much of this nuance was removed and the MacWhirter/ Inspector Leach combined character’s fall off the cliff doesn’t seem to offer any plot advancement. It shows that the character is #struggling, making sure that his character of haunted detective with ‘issues’ is super obvious to the most oblivious of viewer, and gives the child an extra layer of trauma, but arguably all of this could have been achieved without adding suicide into the mix.

Overall, this read as an adaption based on a summary of the novel. The core details more or less remained the same, the murderer and their reasonings were pretty much the same but a lot of the nuance and the character details were confusingly blurred, loosing a lot of what makes the book one of my favourites. But, saying all that, I’m already looking forward to the next one and the chance to pull that apart too!