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The Pale Horse begins, in the village of Much Deeping, in 1960s Surrey, with antique dealer Mark Easterbrook (Rufus Sewell)’s dying in mysterious circumstances
One year later, in London, and a dying woman has written a list of names including Mark’s, and to that end, lots of people are dying all around him, which then makes me wonder what the prospects are for his latest flame, Hermia (Kaya Scodelario – Crawl).
There’s a weird bloke coming into Mark’s shop, screaming about how everyone on the list is going to die and “They’re coming for you!”
Meanwhile, people on the list are popping off one by one, but when it comes to Mark, there’s a question mark against his name… Why? Oh look, another question mark! And about Mark!
The Pale Horse‘s first part just seemed to deliver a lot of ‘weird for the sake of being weird’ elements, and I didn’t see any horses. Should I have done? Or did I, and I just fell into a coma with this rubbish? Either way, it’s only a two-parter so the pain will be brief…
See you on the 16th at 10pm and we’ll see if it got any better.
UPDATE Episode 2: has now aired and… weird! I still didn’t have much of an idea about what was going on.
However, if you do smoke… just make sure you use an ashtray.
And when it came to the revelation, and the person discovering all the ‘how to’ elements of how everything was put together, it reminded me of The Simpsons when Principal Skinner discovered all the blueprints for Bart’s “Buttzilla” balloon of Skinner. Not sure if Agatha Christie’s seen that one.
The Pale Horse is available on the BBC iPlayer.
The drama is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Episode 1 Score: 2/10
Episode 2 Score: 2/10
Director: Leonora Lonsdale
Producer: Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto
Writer: Sarah Phelps
Cast:
Mark Easterbrook: Rufus Sewell
Inspector Stanley Lejeune: Sean Pertwee
Zachariah Osborne: Bertie Carvel
Jessie Davis: Madeleine Bowyer
Thomasina Tuckerton: Poppy Gilbert
Yvonne Tuckerton: Claire Skinner
Bella: Rita Tushingham
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.