Death Valley: Season One (DVD Review)
Director
Simon HyndRelease Date(s)
2025 (August 12, 2025)Studio(s)
BBC Studios (Warner Bros.)- Film/Program Grade: C+
- Video Grade: N/A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
It must be hard for British television-makers to come up with fresh ideas for their overworked mystery series genre, a staple import to American TV and elsewhere since the mid-1980s especially. The 24-seasons-and-counting Midsommer Murders alone would seem to have thoroughly exhausted every conceivable plot by now. Death Valley (2025-present) works from a highly improbable yet appealing premise—an ambitious female Welsh detective sergeant teams up with a retired actor, star of a popular if long-ago TV detective show. This mystery-comedy has been winning rave reviews from both critics and viewers, but its scripts are borderline insufferable in their super-aggressive self-effacing approach.
Further dampening enthusiasm is that this two-disc DVD set are manufactured-on-demand DVD-Rs, of which Disc 2 repeatedly jammed on my player. “These discs are expected to play back in DVD ‘play only’ devices,” states back cover text/disclaimer in teeny-tiny font, but it sure didn’t play properly on my “play only” device.
Set in South Wales—Welsh is occasionally spoken, supported by English subtitles—DS Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth) is in the middle of a murder investigation when she learns that her all-time favorite actor, John Chapel (Timothy Spall), celebrated star of TV’s “Caesar,” is living in her town, if widowed and reclusive. He blames himself for concentrating on his career during his late wife’s final illness, while she’s recovering from a bad breakup with her boyfriend.
In an unlikely development, her admiration of him inspires Chapel to unofficially “assist” in the murder investigation, and turns out to be an invaluable asset. It would have been amusing had Chapel’s own detecting prowess been derived from years of cliched TV scripts, but series creator Paul Doolan goes another, equally valid route: Chapel is simply very good interacting with people and a good listener, feigning interest and flattering them to get them talking, whereas Janie is socially awkward, too confrontational and, well, more about that in a moment.
The plots are standard British TV mystery stuff: a murder within a hiking club, a local theatrical troupe, at a wedding rehearsal, a school reunion, etc., the kind of narrative skeleton one could plug into almost any series. As a mystery show, it relies on the usual genre tropes unimaginatively and is utterly routine, if not unpleasant.
The bigger problem with Death Valley is its overwhelmingly aggressive attempts at eccentric humor, so overdone the viewer is left feeling almost assaulted. Eschewing the style of other British shows featuring better-drawn eccentric characters, such as the long-running Doc Martin, writers Doolan and Nina Metvier give Gwyneth Keyworth’s garrulous copper a non-stop stream of alternately cynical and self-effacing dialogue, she constantly backtracking on her socially clumsy interactions with suspects and Spall’s TV veteran. Most of this revolves around Janie’s lack of confidence, lack of experience, of wanting to be taken seriously, and concerns about her personal appearance, but it has the effect of trivializing these very concerns and instead so suffocates the viewer—this viewer, at least—that she becomes irritating, though Keyworth herself is an appealing and clearly a talented actress.
Spall’s character comes of better, at least when Keyworth’s isn’t around, particularly in his lower-keyed interactions with suspects, Chapel slyly, deftly moving conversations in directions that provide clues to each episode’s mystery. The suggestion, one of the few elements of the program that works quite well, is that, as an actor, Chapel has spent a lifetime observing the subtleties of human behavior, he noticing little bits of behavior passed over by Janie.
Other regular characters—Janie’s boss, the coroner, etc.—are so minor as to be complete blanks of no interest at all. Conversely, some of the guest performers are welcome—Melanie Walters, Patricia Hodge, etc.
Yet the tone of Death Valley is erratic; most episodes are so glib, as if to stay ahead of its thin writing, yet also gets comparatively “serious” as Chapel or the murderer in his or her confession express some sad longing or regret. Yet this is undermined by a don’t-take-any-of this-(even grisly murder itself)-seriously. However, these little moments point to how Death Valley could be a tiny bit substantive. It is, after all, supposed to be a character-driven if comic show. Instead these little bits of gravitas come off as no more sincere than anything else.
Filmed in high definition video with a Panavision-like aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the program is 16:9 enhanced. Two DVD-Rs are used for the Season One’s six episodes, running a total of 270 minutes. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is very pleasing—Sion Trefor’s musical scoring is especially good, as is the show’s opening titles design. Optional English subtitles are provided on this Region 1-encoded set.
Extras are limited to the usual featurettes found on recent British TV releases: Creating Death Valley, The Odd Couple Detectives of Death Valley, and Death Valley: Scripting a Whodunnit? This material is more promotional than enlightening.
Based on the reviews I read, I really wanted to like Death Valley (Season One, but the packaging makes no mention of this; Season Two debuts later this year), but found the comic tone irritating and overwhelming, and the DVD-R jamming issue really put a damper on one’s enjoyment. Not terrible, but disappointing.
- Stuart Galbraith IV