3 out of 5

Directed by: Craig Viveiros

When it comes to drama, while we Yanks love our short-attention span edits and sex, the Brits love them some slow and brooding.  And Then There Were None, a relatively faithful adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel (so I understand), has this in spades, which at times makes the mini feel like it could both speed things up… and then, at other times, when some details are only casually mentioned, like it should slow down so we understand what’s going on.  Explorations of characters’ pasts via flashback suffered from this same push and pull: some things are explored at length and you get it, you get it, and then some things aren’t explored at all when you might wish them to be.  This is the imbalance that ultimately kept the show interesting but not gripping; I’d rewind because I’d feel like I missed some context, only to discover that it truly only was that one sentence or scene I remember, or I’d comb through extended scenes feeling like I must’ve missed some key, but it’s not there.  However, you undeniably can’t beat the mystery, which is sort of an epic twist on a locked room puzzle – island, ten inhabitants, one by one they keep showing up dead even when it seems like everyone except the offed is in sight – and so despite what I’d consider a roundabout execution, you keep coming back for more.

The return visits are assisted by a uniformly excellent cast, with the only potential annoyance, Douglas Booth’s Anthony Marston, getting dead first, so there ya go.  Otherwise: Charles Dance, Sam Neill, Maeve Dermody – all fill their characters with life and tribulations sensed behind their cautious and unnerved stares around the rooms of the mansion in which all are sequestered.  (Which becomes a character in its own right; kudos to production design and director Viveiros for giving the setting a real sense of space.)  Burn Gorman still sports his little thin mustache, and also delivers one of his darkest performances yet.  Rainy cinematography and a moody score by Stuart Earl make sure things stay somber.

To those of us unfamiliar with the story (me), while the final reveal certainly remained unknown, different elements of the tale felt a bit predictable simply due to how the structure of the series was set up.  And it’s shot and paced like a typical BBC mystery: dry, slow.  But the quality production and casting and smart adherence to the source material definitely make it worth watching.