Agatha Christie's Seven Dials (Netflix 2026)
As a lifelong avid reader, BQ remembers spending a summer consuming murder mysteries (including a bunch of Christies) at age 15 or so....but we don't remember ever getting around to 'Seven Dials'......
So we can't make any comparison of the book to this 3 episode British produced Neflix mini-series. (.....though from what we've heard, it takes its own enormous liberties with the novel.)
It's quite an odd duck of a Christie adaptation that appears to attempt that genre-bending algorithm that Neflix is so fond of.......mixing Christie's stiff-upper-lip, lavish mansion, teacup mystery with early 20th century international espionage.....complete with a Hitchcock-type assassination (murder by angry bull) and moving on the death by silenced pistol.
By the time the third episode springs all its shocking surprises and shows all its cards, we'd come to realize the show was dedicated to setting up its own spinoff that has even less to do with Dame Agatha.....but more like preparing us for a stately, antique globe-hopping James Bond-ish series.
Come to think of it, that does in fact sound like our kind of fun, especially if it continues to star this show's MVP, the elfin, adorable but yet quite formidable Mia McKenna-Bruce.
The delightful MMB plays young socialite Lady Eileen 'Bundle' Brent, nicknamed 'Bundle' from the popular slang of the day to describe a vivacious, bubbly and much desired 'it' girl.
And amid the uppercrust nobles and gentry of 1925 England, quite the bundle she is, entrancing, outraging and confounding everyone who crosses paths with her.
Bundle shares a sprawling country estate with her eccentric reclusive (and deadpan funny) mother Lady Caterham (played with wonderfully understated dry humor by Helena Bonham-Carter).
Lady C. can barely disguise her withering contempt at having to make ends meet by renting out the estate for a lavish party given by Foreign Office bigwig George Lomax. (Alex Macqueen). But Bundle doesn't mind, given how taken she is with that young Foreign Office fellow Gerry Wade (Cory Mylchreest), who's hinting he plans to propose to her.
Fat chance for poor Gerry, who turns up dead the next morning, supposedly from a sedative overdose. This sets the irrepressible, fearless but now heartbroken Bundle on a sleuthing hunt for Gerry's murderer.....much to the consternation of her mother and Scotland Yard Superintendent Battle (Martin Freeman, matching Bonham-Carter with an equally sly end-up of British umbrage.)
In the interest of not spending another 5 hours describing the plot, we're leaving out the typically large Agatha Christie cast of characters surrounding Bundle. Naturally there's a host of various prime suspects and assorted folks who either help or hinder our indomitable ingenue on her way to uncover stunning revelations.....(some of which shake her world to its core and set her on a whole new path to......we dare not say.
Frankly, we stayed with this show because like many of the male characters, we found ourselves captivated by Mia Mckenna-Bruce as the iron-willed pixie who could bend people to her will simply with her fetching smile. She's really the whole show here and we didn't mind a bit. (Her scenes with Freeman and Bonham-Carter are the very essence of stylish, understated British humor.)
As for that finale......if Netflix actually greenlights a 'Seven Dials' second season, chances are it will contain minimum Christie and maximum MMB.
Go for it, Netflix.....we'll be there for our new favorite girl.......3 stars (***).
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