This was one of my favourite TV series in the 1960's and I was surprised and delighted to find that it was to be screened again on Talking Pictures TV, and equally surprised to find that all of the original episodes were not only available but to be recorded onto DVD. Why might I be surprised because it was an unfortunate practice of the BBC in the 1950's and 60's to not bother to record programmes, as many especially comedy ones were broadcast live. Of those few programmes that were taped the BBC invariably erroneously considered that they were not worthy, of being kept for posterity and the tapes were either wiped or recorded over.
I had intended to watch every episode but unfortunately I haven't remembered the nights of broadcast and I haven't actually got around to viewing many of them, I was particularly interested with this episode in recognising one of the actors. Pete Murray who was Philippe the paramour of the wealthy Mrs Wilcox, I was particularly surprised to see him acting as I had only seen on the telly, introducing shows like the 65 Special an early pop music show.
Reading the handful of reviews here I am not at all surprised at poor reviews especially the pedantry over the details, boredom over the story not being a properly realised depiction of the novel. I can't help feeling that this is erroneous as I doubt that many people now would even know who the author George Simenon even was, let alone had read or could relate the episodes depiction with the novel. When this TV version was originally broadcast his name was not exactly a household name to anyone watching the show certainly not in Britain, and I have no idea how many people had actually read one of his books.
I think today's television viewers are weaned on the current proffering some based on novels whose authors I doubt have been well read, and most TV detective shows nowadays are stretched over an average two hours. So my prognosis is that current viewers simply expect more of the same, when it comes to watching television programmes especially those serialised by the yank sausage machines.