Oh Miss Marple!

I must say after plowing through all 265 episodes of Murder She Wrote this spring/summer/fall I have been left with a sad empty void in the "adorable old lady murder mystery" part of my life.  I'd find myself craving a little Jessica Fletcher every now and then and re-watching episodes just wasn't cutting it since I'd remember all the major plot points and let's face it - after that many episodes and murders there is a pretty basic formula for how each show would go. Well - void no more thanks to the magnificent-ness that is ITV's Agatha Christie's Marple! Of course those good old Brits would come to my rescue with hour and a half long episodes that are brilliantly cunning with twists, turns, cute 50's outfits, loads of famous British costars, and one wonderfully spry Miss Jane Marple (played by Geraldine McEwan)! Just look at that face - its just bursting with nosy, mystery solving, old lady sass:

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Oh my! Garaldine stole my heart for the first three seasons and now that I'm getting into season four, I'm warming up to Julia MacKenzie as Miss Marple as well:

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I feel like Julia's appearance is more sweet than sassy like Geraldine, but not so secretly I think I just liked Geraldine more because lots of her features and strong female presence remind me of what my grandmas' were like (and trust me, I had some amazing grandmas!). If you haven't had a chance to catch an episode I highly recommend it but make sure you are paying attention (and not multitasking too much in the background) because those plots are twisty! I'm sure that comes with the joys of being based on the best selling Agatha Christie novels and not just some murder mystery formula hollywood pushes out, but I am certainly enjoying this Miss Marple series more than the BBC versions from the 80's. *Sigh* Now I just need to prepare myself for an even bigger void that will be dug once I've made it through this series...