If the principal characters had had different names and each episode a credit such as "using ideas from a novel by Ngaio Marsh," I would have given it a much higher rating. It would have at least been bearable rather than a travesty. I rented the set with great hopes despite the box-art picture of a gent who looked almost completely unlike my mental picture of Roderick Alleyn, and then only with difficulty sat through two episodes.<br /><br />Where to begin? Patrick Malahide hadn't quite the looks for the role of Alleyn, but certainly could have pulled it off given a script that captured the character's essence. Belinda Lang: same problem: Troy is supposed to be almost absurdly beautiful but careless about her appearance, but with the right scripts and makeup crew I'm sure that Lang could have managed quite well. William Simons looked just right for Inspector Fox, but again... these three vital characters are simply not the ones in the books.<br /><br />Alleyn is supposed to be "faun-like" and remind people of a Spanish grandee turned monk "but with some interesting memories." Everyone first meeting him thinks he's an aristocrat, not a policeman (he is both), if they don't know better (or see that Inspector Fox is with him). He's prodigiously learned but wears his learning lightly, passionately fond of the theater; he's forever making jokes that would be above the heads of a television audience. People instinctively trust him and want to confide in him.<br /><br />I saw none of this: did any of it manifest in later shows? I could go on in a similar vein about Troy and Mr. Fox, and indeed on and on... but unless the TV versions rapidly evolved into the characters I have known and loved for a decade, they are not anyone I know, nor particularly would want to know.<br /><br />(Were all the shows set in the Fifties? That's the impression I got, and although that may have been necessary to make the production affordable, it wrenches the stories out of their proper places. The novels seem especially tied to their settings in time and space, and severing them from those removes a good part of their charm.)<br /><br />If you've read and enjoyed any of the books, don't even contemplate watching any of these. You don't deserve such suffering.