Death Valley Review: Timothy Spall -Star is less cozy crimes, more comatose crimes

Timothy Spall's last fleshy TV role was the angusidated academic Peter Farquhar in ITVs, but fermented 2023 True Crime Drama The sixth commandment. Spall – and its extensive forms of expression of the Hangdog facial expressions offered a performance of real heart and nuances. The terrible reality behind the story was all the better: a lonely man who manipulated one of his students was tortured and finally murdered. It is clear that it is nice to mix things. Because BBC is Death Valley Is about so far away from The sixth commandment It is possible to hike.

Death Valley Is not anxious, bleak or nuanced. The star of Death ValleyThe show within a show is TV Detective and National Treasure Charles Caesar. He is a man who puts his hat off with a camply performative and has an amuses Bonus In any case, crowning it, he cracks. It is played by John Chapel (Spall), a shaggy half -brecce that is tempered with fouls, who lives in a small town in Wales and only opens his front door with extreme reluctance. One day a slightly insufficient copper -copper -DS Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) arrives. She examines death (apparently by suicide, but somehow she only knows that it will not be so easy) of a real estate developer who lives over the street. Could Chapel have seen something?

Of course the chapel saw something. In fact, he has a theory and, given the fact that she does not make much progress with the case, DS Mallowan is ready to listen. And surprisingly quickly, this fictional sleuth is unofficially included in the actual police. The central premise that we accept here is so absurd that it is almost admirable in its boldness. It is as if during Inspector Morse 'John Thaw was the heyday in the main time and had been drawn into the MET department for serious crimes and sent to carry out door-to-door inquiries.

But back (in short because there is not so much to say) to the case in question. It turns out that Carwyn Rees, the late real estate developer, has many enemies and more than a few secrets. He can't have taken his own life. After all, he just booked a vacation. But he has beef with a local “tree -grade”. And with a business partner. And with another local woman who finds him vulgar and hatched an elaborate plan to send him. His wife's alibi doesn't seem to be solid either. What a nest from vipen. Thank God for the presence of a local Thesp with a flair for solving crime.

And so it goes on. The second episode includes a bad game in a local Hill Walking Society. Unfortunately, it turns out that another tiny, idyllic corner of the United Kingdom has an endemic and apparently insoluble problem with violent crimes. And once again there is an inevitable but excruciating moment when Chapel and Mallowan recognize the group to an expedition and the suspects, witnesses and spectators that a famous actor seems to be part of the police surgery. For some reason, nobody believes that this unusual story to sell to the tabloids.

Death Valley is not quite without charm. Spall is observed in something and Keyworth is bubbling and funny. The actors make the best of what they have, and it is easy. It was generously seen slightly thematic overtones of the 2024 David Mitchell vehicle of the BBC Ludwig – Although there are never particularly urgent career ambitions of DS Mallowan's career ambitions here, there is no big narrative that underpins the format of the week. Mallowan's bubbling energy and guiltless good nature inevitably bring something out of the grumpy chapel and they become unlikely friends. He shaved his beard and begins to speak to his neighbors. And there is a few indications that unresolved trauma in connection with the death of his wife could be the catalyst for his initial air of darkness. But with regard to the depth of character, that's almost everything that she wrote.

Instead, it gently trots; So low that it is almost weightless. Any cozy crime drama can essentially be attributed to Agatha Christie. They are neat, self-contained and strangely funky-and that is very much the point of them. Like crossword puzzles, they meet a need for completeness, formula and solution. The restrictions of the genre are a matter of course and their purpose is clear. Nobody will look for grit and dirt.

But finally in the context of the crime drama canon, Death Valley Is the equivalent of one of these Downton Abbey-Stil -costume dramas that have all aesthetic traps of a Jane Austen or a George Eliot creation, but none of subtlety or literary profits. It would go away on the slightest breeze. There are undoubtedly less pleasant ways to spend a Sunday evening in front of the television. But that is less cozy crimes, comatose crimes. You will have forgotten everything Death Valley Within 20 minutes after the final loan.