Netflix’s New 3-Part Agatha Christie Mystery Fails To End Abysmal Rotten Tomatoes Trend For The Author

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The new Netflix series, Seven Dials, based on an Agatha Christie story, is getting mixed reactions. It features Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent, a detective from one of Christie’s less famous novels, played by Mia McKenna-Bruce, as she investigates a seemingly harmless prank that escalates into a murder.

Now that the Christie series is streaming on Netflix, viewers have been sharing their reactions on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics gave it a score of 71%, but audiences rated Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials lower, at 57%. This seems to be a recurring issue with adaptations of Christie’s work – audiences haven’t been particularly impressed.

Recent Agatha Christie adaptations haven’t been very popular with viewers. The BBC’s Toward Zero received a score of 37%, and Murder is Easy from 2023 only scored 27%. The last adaptation that audiences really enjoyed was Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, starring Will Poulter, which earned a score of 73%.

Despite mostly positive reviews from critics—who praised McKenna-Bruce’s performance and felt the mystery improved in the final episode—viewers have been very critical of Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials. While some appreciated the story’s cleverness and style, many others found it dull and not as good as Christie’s usual work.

I first encountered Bundle Brent in Christie’s The Secret of Chimneys back in 1925, but she really took center stage in The Seven Dials Mystery a few years later in 1929. Now, everyone loves Christie for her classic whodunits, especially those featuring Poirot and Miss Marple, but The Seven Dials Mystery… well, it wasn’t exactly a hit. A lot of people, both critics and readers, felt it didn’t quite feel like a typical Christie novel. It was a bit of a sprawling story, with too many characters running around and a plot that felt a little all over the place.

This isn’t the first time a screen adaptation of a Bundle mystery has received negative reviews. Back in 1981, London Weekend Television made a movie version of The Seven Dials Mystery starring Cheryl Campbell. Though Netflix’s recent Seven Dials adaptation took some liberties with the story, the earlier movie stayed quite close to the original book.

The 1981 film doesn’t have a critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but viewers gave it a 55% rating – even lower than the Netflix adaptation. As these are the only two movies based on the story, neither one was a hit with audiences.

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials is now available on Netflix, adding to their growing number of murder mystery titles, which already include the Knives Out films. Plus, several more of Christie’s stories are being adapted for the screen, such as Jonathan Entwistle’s Endless Night and a Britbox series based on Tommy & Tuppence.

All three episodes of Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials are streaming on Netflix.

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2026-01-18 00:48