One of film and television's most famous detectives, Agatha Christie's Miss Marple is as iconic a crime-busting figure. The original series, starring Joan Hickson, ran for eight years and 12 episodes between 1984 and 1992, picking up literally millions of fans along the way. Of course, it helps that Christie's Miss Marple series is among the best selling in recorded history.

Spinster of this parish
Long before Joan Hickson made the Miss Marple role her own at the ripe old age of 79, she had established herself as a versatile stage, screen and TV actor. She starred in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1971) with Alan Bates, and cropped up in classic TV comedy Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads and bawdy sex farce Confessions of a Window Cleaner over the following three years. The latter must've been a particularly easy ride -- Hickson is a veteran of many a Carry On comedy as well.

The Lansbury connection
Also appearing on TV screens for the first time in 1984 was Murder She Wrote, starring Angela "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher -- get this -- a kindly lady of a certain age who happens upon (and solves) heinous homicides wherever she goes. Sound familiar? Hmmm. Lansbury, of course, spent a chunk of the '70s appearing in movie adaptations of Agatha Christie books, but only played Miss Marple once, in 1980's The Mirror Crack'd. MSW was, one is forced to assume, her personal revenge for Hickson pipping her to the post on the TV series.

Suspend your disbelief
One of the main secrets of Miss Marple's enduring charm -- also seen in a comically magnified form in MSW -- is our heroine's uncanny ability to pick pivotal shards of evidence out of thin air. Not for her the simple use of logic and playing the cards one's dealt -- oh no, she is apparently perpetually privy to vital information, which none of the potential miscreants gathered in the salon (it's always a salon) for the final exposition even knows exists.

A sense of propriety
As befits such a pleasant, upright -- well, slightly stooped but morally sound -- lady as Miss Marple, this TV adaptation (a co-production between British, American and Australian networks) strays as little as possible from Christie's original text. Unlike many earlier movie adaptations, this Miss Marple doesn't physically chase suspects (I mean, imagine!) and not even the titles are tampered with. This is English literary history we're talking about.