Telemystery: Production Update on Miss Marple Season 6

It seems like it's been ages since we've seen a new Miss Marple mystery. Indeed, the most recent news we have is from November 2011, when ITV commissioned three additional episodes in the series, starring Julia McKenzie as Miss Jane Marple.

But now were learning (via ITV) that filming on the third and final episode of the upcoming sixth season — "Endless Night" — is underway.

The episode screenplay is by Kevin Elyot, adapted from the 1967 novel Endless Night by Agatha Christie … which does not feature Miss Marple. However, this is not unusual for this series as there are relatively few Miss Marple stories and novels from which to base episodes.

In the episode being filmed … While staying with her recently widowed friend, Marjorie (Wendy Craig), Miss Marple meets the narrator of this story — handsome, working-class charmer Mike Rogers (Tom Hughes), who dreams of building his perfect home on local beauty spot, Gypsy's Acre, despite its alleged curse.

Soon Mike is also enchanted by the beautiful Ellie Goodman (Joanna Vanderham), an American heiress who is yearning to escape her closeted existence. They quickly fall in love, and make plans to marry and build their dream home; their happiness tainted only by the threats and warnings of local gypsy, Mrs Lee (Janet Henfrey).

However, Mike's childhood friend and architect, Robbie Hayman (Aneurin Barnard) ensures them all is fine, and before long their beautiful new home is built. They tie the knot in a secret ceremony; but it's not long before Ellie's stepmother, Cora Van Stuyvesant (Glynis Barber), and lawyer, Andrew Lippincott (William Hope), descend.

Then when she twists her ankle, Ellie invites her one true friend, Greta Anderson (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen) to stay. Mike seems less than happy at another intrusion, and Miss Marple suspects that there is more to the stunning Miss Anderson than meets the eye.

Before long, tragedy strikes when Ellie is thrown from her horse and dies. A devastated Mike travels to New York to sort out his late wife's estate with Lippincott, but then two more mysterious deaths occur. Only Miss Marple can solve the riddle of Gypsy's Acre, but in doing so she must put her own life in very serious danger …

The other two episodes already filmed are "A Caribbean Mystery", adapted from one of the most popular of the Miss Marple novels; and "Greenshaw's Folly", adapted from a Miss Marple short story included in the 1960 collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. Note that this latter episode is different from the one originally announced in 2011, which was supposed to have been adapted from The Seven Dials Mystery.

No air dates for these three episodes have yet been announced by the network.