AS SEEN ON TV: HERCULE POIROT (x 3)

For the week of Thanksgiving, we're featuring reruns as our leftovers - literary characters as seen on TV who have been previously featured in this showcase.

And for Thanksgiving Day, we have over-stuffed the gallery with three versions of Dame Agatha Christie's Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot.

When he was featured early in the year, we used the Poirot from the Cineverse Borderlands. And we still have not given this "tribute" to the Hercule Poirot of Earth Prime-Time, as played by David Suchet.

HERCULE POIROT

CREATED BY:

Dame Agatha Christie

AS PORTRAYED BY:

Alfred Molina

AS SEEN IN:

"Murder On The Orient Express"

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

TV DIMENSION:

Evil Toobworld

Liberties with the original story can be expected in any TV production. For the official Earth Prime-Time adaptation of this, the best known of Poirot's cases, a major revision was given to the televersion of Dr. Constantine. But that not only worked, in my opinion it was an improvement over the original story. However, this TV movie eliminated too many characters and by doing so removed the important reason for such a large cast. And thus, it is EVIL!

AS PORTRAYED BY:

Martin Gabel

AS SEEN IN:

'G.E. True Theater'

"Hercule Poirot"

TV STATUS:

Recastaway (Original)

TV DIMENSION:

Prequel Toobworld

Gabel's performance as Poirot was the first appearance for the character and this episode of the anthology series served as a pilot for a proposed TV show. Normally the rule in Toobworld is the first portrayal of any character is the official televersion for Earth Prime-Time. But a one-shot version has to be put aside in favor of a recastaway who logs more screen time with an actual series, and such is the case here. By the end of next year, David Suchet will have been seen in adaptations of every single story by Christie about Poirot. He will forever stand as the benchmark for the role. Gabel's performance then has to be relegated to the world of prequels (no good name for that world yet) in which we also find Art Carney's version of Horace Ford and Stuart Margolin as Rabbi David Small.

(I'd also like to think his TV dimension might be that of "Over There" as seen in 'Fringe', if only for the fact that Martin Gabel's grandson Seth Gabel played FBI/Fringe Division Agent Lincoln Lee in that world.)

I need to get to the Paley Center one of these days and see if they have Gabel's performance in the archives......

PORTRAYED BY:

Sir Ian Holm

AS SEEN IN:

"Murder By The Book"

TV STATUS:

Dream Figure

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time Dream

Toobworld Central makes allowances for recasting due to aging. So Dame Peggy Ashcroft is Dame Agatha Christie for Earth Prime-Time as a woman near the end of her life, while Fenella Woolgar is the younger Agatha Christie as seen in the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Unicorn And The Wasp". Holm's Poirot is merely the manifestation of Christie's sleuth in a dream she had while working out the details for the last book to be written about Poirot, "Curtain".

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FOR MORE ON POIROT IN THE BORDERLANDS......

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. As one of our Poirots (at least!) would never say: "Gabel Gabel Gabel!"

BCnU!