Death Valley is a relaxed detective series with a fun premise. Who calls the police when they can’t solve a murder case? In real life, they probably wouldn’t call an actor who played a detective on TV in the past. That’s exactly what happens in the BBC series Death Valley. While investigating the death of a property developer, young detective Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) runs into retired actor John Chapel (Timothy Spall). For many years, he played the lead role in the fictional detective series Caesar, which Janie is a big fan of. Although John isn’t a real detective, he has picked up a few useful things from playing one for years and is happy to help her solve various murder cases.
Death Valley is light-hearted, heart-warming and has an original approach
When you see the vast plains of Wales, you immediately think of pale, grim detectives. The opposite is true in Death Valley. If light-hearted detectives are your thing, then Death Valley is also highly recommended. It offers everything that series like Death In Paradise offer. It is funny, heartwarming and easy to watch. Yet the makers manage to occasionally incorporate some serious moments without it being out of place.
Gwyneth Keyworth and Timothy Spall are well-rehearsed together
Spall and Keyworth are two very nice main characters who are very well attuned to each other. Their two characters are in great contrast to each other. They are from different generations and look at murder cases in a different way. She is focused on evidence, he on feeling. But there is also a shared love for puzzles and mysteries that comes forward very well. Steffan Rhodri is also very funny as the chief of the police team, and Melanie Walters does well as Janie's mother. However, I found the secondary characters rather flat and I would have liked to see them given a bit more space and a bit more fun material to work with.
The murder cases that are dealt with are exactly what you would expect from this type of series. From a witness who is beaten to death at a wedding to an apparent suicide to a strangled chairman of a theatre company. And often the motives are something like revenge, love or money. It is nothing you have not seen before in this genre, but it is still fun to watch. There is also a continuous storyline in the season that comes forward strongly in the last episode. However, I sometimes found the murder cases a bit too simplistic. Somewhat longer episodes would certainly help with this.
Death Valley is wonderfully relaxing television. It is cheerful, funny and at the right moments serious and sensitive. It is not a groundbreaking series, but the original premise and the fun main characters make Death Valley very enjoyable to watch. The end of season one offers enough possibilities to continue the story and I really hope that there will be a second. The BBC has not announced anything about that yet, but due to high viewing figures and positive reviews it seems very likely to me that season two will actually come.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
