By The Pricking of My Thumbs, an adaptation of a Tommy and Tuppence novel, turns Tuppence into a resentful, flask-carrying alcoholic who is jealous of Tommy's successful spying career, while she got sidelined because of her pregnancy.

Mitzi's attention-seeking histrionics are replaced with quiet contempt and bitterness, to the point of completely eliminating her role as comic relief. Swettenham and her son into a creepy possessive one, removes the son's mild love story and adds an angsty one between the mother and an alcoholic colonel.

A Murder is Announced turns the happy relationship of Mrs.The Moving Finger has an old military man commit suicide because of his taboo sexual orientation (unclear whether gay or bisexual), and turned Jerry's injuries into self-inflicted ones from a failed suicide.

The fact that he's innocent of the crime he committed in the original books just ramps up his misery even further. This particular adaptation also turns him into a former RAF soldier who fought in WWII, and there are several hints that he's suffering from shell-shock and Survivor Guilt (because two of his best friends were killed during the war), which turns him into a gambling addict. For one, the death of his wife seems to affect him more greatly in the adaptation than it did in the books.

The Body in the Library: ITV's intepretation of Mark Gaskell is a lot more sympathetic than what's shown in the original novel.

At Bertram's Hotel has a band of bored thieves becoming avengers of the Holocaust and a greedy teenager in love with a dashing racing driver becoming a closeted lesbian racked with guilt over persuading her beloved girl to go for a swim in the river (where Elvira ended up not swimming with her), where she caught polio and was left with a paralysed arm.

The central murder of the book becomes 'a crime born of love.' Even Mrs McGillicuddy is given her share of tragedy in the form of unrequited feelings. A minor, happily married character is given a sordid backstory of sexual assault. The prim politician detests his exaggeratedly unattractive wife and bitterly resents his parents' happiness. The shady businessman type also breaks down crying after his disappeared accomplice. The cocky, smug artist of the book publicly announces he's an artistic failure and breaks down crying in front of his father in the film. The lecherous old man who called his wife stupid becomes a grieving widower.

4:50 From Paddington does this to almost every character.

Miss Marple herself is equipped with a romance backstory where she cast away a man she loved because he was married and she urged him to uphold his responsibilities.

' The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side'.

Tommy and tuppence tv