Pop Culture Happy Hour - Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

The new Netflix series Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials centers on lesser known mystery solving protagonist Lady Eileen Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce). It’s got all the familiar cozy mystery trappings like a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots of secrets. Based on an early Christie novel, the show also features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You all know Agatha Christie's beloved mystery-solving protagonists. There's Herk You Poirot. There's Miss Marple. There's Lady Eileen Brent. Wait, what? Who now? Well, Lady Eileen may not be as well known, but she's the star of a new Netflix series called Seven Dials,

which features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham Carter. And while it's got all the familiar cozy, Christy mystery trappings, a matter house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots and lots of secrets, there's something else going on here, too. Something that Netflix hopes will launch Wait for it. An Agatha Christie universe.

I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Agatha Christie's Seven Dials on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is Barry Hardiman. She's a senior editor for NPR's Investigations team. Welcome back, Barry. It's been too long. It's been too long. How are you? Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you. And rounding off the panel is Culture Writer Margaret H. Willisn's also been too long for you. Hey, Margaret. Hi, Glenn. I'm so glad to be back with this crack team of mystery analysts. I just want to tell you, ladies, I admire your plot. I just want to get good on there.

You really can do nothing else under the circumstances. Absolutely. In Agatha Christie's seven dials, it's 1925 in Britain at a grand old house in the country. Lady Katerham and her daughter, Lady Eileen, that's Bundle, to her universally insufferable aristocratial chums, throw a party where gauche social climbers mix with members of the British intelligence community. Lady Kateram is played by Helena Bonham Carter, and Bundle is played by Mia McKenna Bruce. What do we think this top secret project is in that? talking about? Well, if I learned one thing from your dear departed father, it was this. It doesn't do to ask too many questions. And that marries the difference between you and I. The next morning,

one handsome young man who works at the British Foreign Office winds up dead. The death is ruled to suicide, but Bundle is sure that that's wrong because he was about to propose to her. Her resolve the young man's murder and what it might have to do with seven clocks that were placed on the mantle of the bedroom he died in gets Bundle tangled up at a conspiracy, involving a secret formula. It also brings her into conflict with Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard who tries to waver off the case,

although he does respect her pluck. That's where I got that from. He's played by Martin Freeman. Seven Diles is based on an early Christie novel that was not well received at the time because its looser action-oriented plot departed so radically from what folks expected of her. It's created by Chris Chibnall

who created Broadchurch and did a stint as a showrunner on Doctor Who. All three episodes are on net Now, Margaret, who else could we start with? Who else I ask you? What'd you think of Agatha Christie's Seven Diles? As someone who has been in a relationship with Agatha Christie since age 10, when my mom brought home my first used Agatha Christie paperbook from a thrift store.

That's the way to do it. I really enjoyed this. You know, she's so adapted. And people always face the challenge of sort of like, well, how much of this time period detail are we going to preserve because it's part of the charm? and how much are we going to update? Because that time period, the values they're in don't always align with the values of our time. There are people who thread this needle successfully.

There are people who thread this needle very poorly. I would say this was a very successful needle threading. Like thoughtful adaptation, but what's most important is I feel like it really preserves the essence of Christy, where we have a lot of hijinks, we have a lot of banter. We have some emotional stakes, but not massive ones. just enough to keep the plot humming. And the plot hums along and it hums along very beautifully. I feel like it plays well by the mystery of rules where you're given enough information

to come up with all the conclusions yourself. But the final reveal is still a surprise or it was to me. For those reasons, I very much enjoyed this. Hardly recommend it to others and hope it does spawn a Christie cinematic universe on Netflix. Okay. Are you done for the CCU, Barry? Well, in that we are aligned. There are a few better universes that we could spread about the world of this moment.

But let me put it this way. Everything about this is made for me, an old manor house, a plucky young heroine, Helen Abonam Carter, tons of gorgeous old timepieces. I mean, that is really where it was like very specific to like Barry Hartyman. And, I mean, literally, there is a shot of a World War I era trench watch, like in the first. five minutes and it's worth it for that alone. But I will say that it meant that I enjoyed it. It doesn't necessarily mean that I thought it was the most successful cozy mystery that I have watched. And I think a lot of that is partly down to the fact that it's not a perfect Christy mystery.

And in fact, people complained about it when it came out. It's more of a thriller. But for me, the mystery itself is a little, doesn't quite hang together. The writers have made some changes to the book. And which I say, I know with great poor. They've made some changes. But I think neither is actually a perfect mystery. I mean, you can go back and trace it and find that you got a pretty good deal from the author or the writer in this case of the series. But there was never a moment where I felt that anyone would have really gasped. I don't want my gasps to be from the sort of scary thriller-yness of it.

I want my gasps to be from the plot math. You know what I mean? And so that I didn't get. I will say I loved Bundle, loved Lady Eileen. You know, it is a who's who is everybody. Helena Bottom Carter is doing what she does in really very fine fashion. She's dealt some crooked story math herself and I think handles it very, very well. You know, for me, this is a six to seven dials as opposed to ten dials.

Yeah. All right. That's interesting. We have arranged ourselves as sometimes we do along a spectrum. I'm going to give this three or four dials because, look, this worked for me until the very moment it stopped, which is about a third of the way, I would say, through the third episode, when I just thought it went all the way off the damn rails. And so I feel like I'm one of those early critics who are like,

well, this isn't what I was expecting of her, because this isn't what I was expecting of her. Like, Mary, I'm with you, when it was serving me, Manor House. My gal, HBC being snippy, root to the servants, hating the commoners. Will you be joining us for Bridge? Oh, I fear not, Lady Cout. Oh, why? It was devised by an American on a boat.

This is what I want. A low back. When it's given me a guy with no neck who looks like Colonel Mustard acting like what I expect Colonel Mustard would look like and act like, yeah. A bunch of upper class being upper class twits. I mean, the dialogue there is fine. It's kind of diet Jeeves and Worcester, but I think that's what it's aiming for. Perfect, yes. When it tries to pivot to the action or suspense or thriller genre, which it keeps trying to do, I just don't think it works.

I do think they're trying to make it a gag how they're pivoting to it because like there's this one car chase where instead of like tires screeching and engines revving you hear put put put put put put put put put put and that's just funny. Yes. That's just funny when there's an adorable car chase. And these guys, you know, these people, these noodle armed aristos don't know how to fight. And so they play that up. If all that stuff is going to be a gag, then what am I to make of it when a character gets up on their high hoax? about the stolen formula costing British lives. It's like, you know what's given me?

It's given to me Mrs. Peacock and Clue. Like a lot of our airmen died because their radios didn't work. It's like, give me that. And can we talk about this? I really want to talk about this without actually spoiling anything. But the secret society stuff is so silly. There's one particular secret society meeting that is overheard. Yes.

That is the definition of this meeting should have been a telegram. Yes. I like what I said. It's exactly what I said. That meeting could have email. Yes, absolutely. They are. And it's just,

it is so funny because they're also, they have like elaborate costumes. Right. Right. Right. Right. Why did we come together to say this to each other? Right.

Somebody inlaid the table. Like that's me. I'm like somebody really went to a lot of trouble. I think there's Mother of Pearl in there. Absolutely. Maybe gold. Yes. Right.

All of that stuff could work if everything around it was lighter, funnier, faster, punchier. Faster. Yeah. The pacing is. It keeps getting bogged down with this emotional stuff that, Margaret, you were talking about. Like, Bundle keeps telling people that she has to figure out what happened to her little Timo Matthew Good, right? Who's a source of incredible comfort for both me and my family.

And he... I was more than fond of him, honey. This is like a record for Netflix bloat. Only three episodes. And we got... She got all serious about her, you know, she and Rufus Sewell every 15 minutes. Glenn, you've got to update your references. What you're meant to do is squint at him and say, is that the guy from Frankenstein?

Is that Jacob Allorty? Right. Yeah, there we go. I got news. It ain't Jacob Allure. But, I mean, I do think that Corey Milkrease has a great career ahead of him of people being, is that? Yeah. Jacob All right.

People squinting. Is that? My question for you both is, like, what sets this apart from the masterpiece? Mysteries of the world or any of a million other places, you could get the mystery stuff that the show serves up without all this franchise building nonsense. Because right now, this is a combination pizza hot Taco Bell. And I don't go to a combination pizza at Taco Bowl when I want pizza. Yeah, right, yeah. I want to see more of this because I want to see more of this always.

But I do think you've had upon a little bit of a problem, which is that because the characters that we are left with and presumably might carry on to another mystery have only been developed in terms of their barest motivation, as we've just pointed out, there isn't. enough for me to want to see them. You know, like, I can't remember what the thin man mysteries are about, but I remember their dog's name, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. Who could you get asked and this is hard. I could you remember the house's name because that's just my thing. But I don't remember there's not enough to really hook into my brain. And so the lack of character development, it's almost as though in their attempts to update this in a way that is more tolerable for modern

viewers, they sort of forgotten that you can't just insert a couple of lectures in place of actual human like banter and contact. And so, you know, I applaud there, the history lessons and whatnot. And what I really want is some, a little more banter, a little more whimsy as you're and actually, what I really want is whimsy, guys. I mean, how is there not a whimsy? I mean, we all agree. I think the primary reason that I am excited is bundle. I feel like, She really, really worked for me. And I feel like I agree with the tensions that you guys are citing in terms of, like, the degree to which she's, like, quote, unquote, traumatized and the way that's worked into the plot. And also the way that trauma is addressed in the story overall, I'm going to reference something that I introduced on pop culture happy era in 2014, which is my first ever Weldonian schema, which is what kind of detective are we working with?

You have two axes. We go from professional to amateur on one axes, and we go from traumatized to impervious on the other axes. And I would say that Lady Eileen is placed perfectly for me, lightly traumatized, right? You know, she has a feeling, but also she's going to make a joke about the subpar IV refusing to hold her as she shimmies down a drain pipe. And primarily what she is there for is pluckily shimmying down drain pipes, which I would say she does with great aplomb. Oh, all the ration. No. Very poor clause of Ivy.

I did that, another squinting thing, if you're watching one of these British shows. I was like, Mia McKennaberts. I was like, what have I seen her? And I didn't, she played a character I wasn't supposed to like, but I loved the way she played it. Who was she? Who was she? She was in Netflix's wildly ill-conceived persuasion adaptation. Oh, yes. And she was truly one of the only great things about it.

So I was thrilled to see her here getting to use her talents to a better end. And I feel like moving forward, we will have the freedom to pursue things a little bit more whimsically. Yes. Because, again, not to spoil things, but you sort of step out of the realm of like grounded political consequences and into the realm of Kingsmen, let's say. Sure. And I would love to see basically an Agatha Christie inflected. Kingsman type serial adventure starring Eileen Bundle Brent.

That to me feels like a winning formula. Yes. But I understand and agree with you if what they try to do instead is this thing where they're like, well, we're addressing the ills of the British Empire, but also isn't this Ivy funny? And obviously Martin Freeman,

as battle, as superintendent battle, could be a very humorless part. And he does a great job of sort of lacing it with wry humor without betraying the idea that he's sort of a very serious police superintendent with much business to attend to. What are you doing out here? Ensuring that no one is about who shouldn't be. May I ask what you were doing out here?

Me? Yes, you do you normally exit buildings via the window? Uh, depends on the building. He has one piece of acting toward the very end at a moment where he has to show empathy. I felt he was the right man for the job, you know? You feel they spent their budget well? when it comes to their actors. Agreed.

That's right. Truly, I think what we can hope for is that they thought, okay, we're going to do the seven dials because we have to do one that is like, and hopefully this now gets into the hands of a really creative writer who is able to preserve the spirit of Agatha Christie and do something truly creative and not be sort of bounded in by what they may or may not have felt their loyalty to the original material is. And it may be one of these things where we say, we look back and say, oh, boy, this is such a great series. You just have to skip the first one, you know?

Yeah. I think you have a point where maybe a lot of this redounds to the source material because I do think the mystery and the source material is awfully thin. When we eventually find out why there are seven clocks of that mental base, it comes right from the book. And it's like, what? That's, what? That's not, you can't build. You cannot build a mystery around that. That is so abstruse.

That is not satisfying. That's the opposite of satisfying. That's like, nope. Because that's where some of my anger is coming from. My other anger is coming from eavesdropping as a plot device, which I forgive in like. Shakespeare. Why a mysteries? Because.

Whatever. Shakespeare. Y.A. mysteries. Same difference. No, but like nobody ever tells kids anything. So the only way kids get information is by eavesdropping. But like, eavesdropping depends upon you deciding to climb inside the shift row of

exactly the right place in time. Yeah. To overhear what we've already addressed is a non-meeting. I just think the meeting is so short. It's so funny. It shows short and stupid and nothing is it. Anyway. Right, right.

All right. So y'all are in for more of this bundle universe with her snooty, snoddy friends. And more time pieces and I support the low-backed dresses. Yeah. Jazzy music. Yeah. I support the ambience. Production values, great.

great production values, casting, impeccable. See, this is why, maybe that's a difference between this and Masterpiece Mystery. This has a budget. This has a Netflix budget. There's some globe-trotting here. Also, Glenn, I reject the premise. How does this differ from Masterpiece Mystery? Whomst Among Us said needed to differ? I just want more. No, I know. But what is the Netflix of it giving? It seems to me the Netflix of it is giving this big overarching franchisee ridiculousness, which I think doesn't work. Well, and in that case, I think we're comparing it less against Masterpiece, which can

get really great names and has terrific production values. And more against the sort of tier of, there are like Brit Box and Acorn that exist exclusively to cater to people with my appetite and also produce a lot of, if you made a masterpiece mystery production with a hallmark theater budget, right? Yes. And like those scratch a certain itch but not this itch. This is like, they get the exact spot and you're like, oh, that's it. Yes, that's right.

All right. We have arranged ourselves on a spectrum. How many dials do you give seven dials? Tell us what you think about Agatha Christie's seven dials. Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash BCHHH. That brings us to the end of our show, Barry Hardiman. Margaret H. Willison, thank you so much for being here. I couldn't have asked anybody else on this particular show.

Thank you. Thank you. Glenn, always nod to be here. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Latimore, and Mike Katz. Have been edited by our showrunner, Jessica Redie, and Holocan provides our theme music. And just reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes.

Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.