Like an Oasis riff or Tarantino film, it borrows from all over – at the risk of occasionally coming off as an annoying cover version. Gwyneth Keyworth’s eccentric young detective, Janie Mallowan, is a cross between David Mitchell’s nerdy sleuth in Ludwig and Frances McDormand’s homespun detective in the eccentric noir classic Fargo. Her partner-in-crime-solving is played by the great character actor Timothy Spall, seemingly aiming for a gimlet-eyed fusspot with elements of Sir David Suchet’s Poirot and Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote.
Gwyneth Keyworth as Janie Mallowan (Photo: BBC/BBC Studios/Simon Ridgway)
Wackiness on TV is a bit like marshmallows on your hot chocolate. A little can be delicious – too much, and your taste buds are under attack. Death Valley bumps up against that line repeatedly. The series’ biggest blind spot is that Mallowan is written like a character parachuted from The Fast Show, while everyone else plays it straight. When, for instance, she visits the dead man’s business partner, and he asks if she likes football, she blurts out, “No… hate it,” in an extremely cartoonish way.
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Spall does better, but only because he has more to work with as a fading luvvy whose glory days are gone. That said, it’s hard to believe a committed hermit would suddenly transform into a keen crime solver, as happens the moment Mallowan turns up on his doorstep. It feels too neat, moreover, that an actor famous for portraying a detective would himself be a top-rank crime solver. Are we supposed to believe Daniel Craig can really abseil in a tuxedo or that Timothée Chalamet rides giant worms?
Rithvik Andugula as DC Evan Chaudhry (Photo: BBC/BBC Studios/Simon Ridgway)The killer is revealed by the dynamic detective duo in a rewarding conclusion outside the dead man’s new housing development. Only it isn’t one killer but two – and, if their identities are predictable, their plan to kill the property baron and escape with his fortune is well thought through.
‘Death Valley’ continues next Sunday at 8.15pm on BBC One
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