In "Hercule Poirot's Christmas," Poirot (David Suchet) is invited to a millionaire's house for the holidays, and without the rest of the family's knowledge. It seems though, that Hercule wasn't the only unannounced guest when the millionaire asks his estranged son and a granddaughter none of them have met before to be present as well.
The family is an odd hodgepodge of characters, including everything from a member of Parliament to the son and his wife that live with the old man and take care of him. While Poirot isn't quite sure why he is there, the millionaire explains that he simply wants the famous detective to observe his family and explain what Poirot does. Unfortunately, it seems that the odd game the patriarch is bent on playing goes too far when a loud scream and crashes from his locked room find the old man dead and everyone in the house at the time of the death seems to be a suspect with both motive and flimsy alibis.
"Hickory Dickory Dock" starts off with Miss Lemon (Pauline Moran) telling Poirot about a hostel her sister helps run and that there have been a series of strange thefts plaguing the household. At first, Poirot and Hastings (Hugh Fraser) go to the hostel to try and uncover the thief, but when deaths start occurring, it becomes obvious that there is something far more insidious happening. Hercule's task is to not only figure out who the murderer is, but what the strange collection of stolen items has to do with the deaths.
"Murder on the Links" puts Poirot and and Hastings on Holiday, but like all of the Belgian's vacations, a murder causes him to start up an investigation and uncover some interesting tidbits about the past of pretty much everyone involved.
The owner of the hotel that Poirot and Hastings are staying at asks the detective to visit him at his villa, but by the time Poirot arrives, the man has been discovered dead in a half-dug sand trap at the hotel's golf course. Hercule's investigation has him suspecting everyone from the neighbor, whom the victim appears to have an affair with, to the dead man's son or even his wife. What bothers Poirot the most though is that there are aspects of this case that have a familiar sound to them, and he won't rest until he figures out what it is.
There are two other interesting bits about this particular case. Poirot is confronted by a local police officer who claims to be the best detective in France. As a result, Poirot and the pompous detective make a wager on the outcome of the case. If Poirot reveals the murderer, then he gets the Frenchman's pipe, the man's hallmark. Meanwhile, if the French detective solves the case, Poirot will have to shave off his mustache.
The other notable element is that this case is where Hastings meets his future wife which becomes the cause for his character to stop following Poirot around.
The last case in Agatha Christie's Poirot: Series 6 is "Dumb Witness." In this episode, Hastings has a friend who is attempting a water-speed record and invites his friend and Poirot to observe. While the attempt doesn't quite go as planned, focus quickly shifts from that to a death when a woman dies by apparently natural causes after tripping over a ball that belongs to the family's fox terrier. Everything would seem natural, if it wasn't for the fact that the lady who died felt like someone was trying to kill her and had had a chance to talk to Poirot about the situation.
Poirot will have a hard time working through this case though since there are not only more deaths to attend to, but also a pair of ladies who believe they can talk to the dead and are trying to ask the recently deceased who the killer was. Could they be suspects themselves? Could the first death be related to the fact that the woman just changed her will? Why does this fox terrier seem to really like Poirot, and where will the pet go once the mystery is solved? All of these are questions that Poirot will have to consider and work through if he is to get past this case and not have a new pet to keep.
Overall, Agatha Christie's Poirot: Series 6 is a good collection of episodes. It's a shame that there are only four mysteries in this particular collection, but they are movie-length and the plots are always enjoyable. I would recommend this series just as much as the rest of the collection.
