Death Valley

There are some shows that would look incongruous in any other slot except pre-watershed on a Sunday. It’s a uniquely golden time free of cynicism when the likes of Countryfile and Antiques Roadshow can provide succour before the stresses of the working week begin again. Death Valley is undoubtedly a natural bedfellow — proper comfort-blanket TV and of a high quality, thanks to its casting of Timothy Spall as John Chapel, a retired actor and one-time television detective who’s now living as a kind of reclusive Droopy in Wales. There to make use of his keen observation skills is a disarming police sergeant (Gwyneth Keyworth) who, following a shooting in John’s neighbourhood, leans into her line in droll self-deprecation to draw him out of his shell.