YOU do not have to be an Imelda Marcos among shoe lovers (big shout out here to Eva Bolander, lady Lord Provost of Glasgow) to be familiar with the style known as “clumpy”. Flat, sturdy, easy to run in, clumpy footwear is worn by women police officers the television world over. By their heavy shoe prints, sometimes to be found on the necks of wrong ‘uns, shall ye know them.

Two clumpily clad queens of crime were in evidence this week, one a newcomer the other well known to devotees of Spiral (BBC4, Saturday). This is the seventh series of the French drama. The last one ended with commander Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust) fleeing into the dark when she was supposed to be taking her new baby daughter home from the hospital.

Waiting for the pair in the car park was Laure’s lover and deputy, Gilou (Thierry Godard). He, understandably, was none too pleased with his pal. But now that their old boss has been found murdered, Laure wants to be put on the case. Cue more Gilou misery. It is as plain as the nose on his face that dumpy Gilou still loves his clumpy shoed gal. He is not going to give in that easily, though.

Watching Spiral reminds me of the train journey from the airport to the centre of Paris. Row after row of soulless tower blocks housing the poorest Parisiens can be seen in the distance. These are the mean streets, far away from the tourist hotspots, walked by leather-jacketed Laure and her maverick colleagues.

Like all the best long running dramas, Spiral is not afraid to slum it as a soap opera, bringing back popular characters (Judge Roban) and throwing others in jail (poor Josephine, whose gorgeous red hair has not surprisingly lost its bounce now she is surrounded by hardened cons who are clearly strangers to conditioner). Great to have everyone back.

In Dublin Murders (BBC1, Monday and Tuesday), detectives Cassie Maddox and Rob Reilly (Sarah Greene and Killian Scott) found themselves on a path to the past. A girl had been found murdered in the same woods where three children had gone missing decades before. Only one of the trio was ever seen again.

Maddox and Reilly were doing a grand job investigating, particularly given all they had to contend with, including an eye-wateringly boorish boss and their own, er, interesting pasts that were coming back to spook them. Adapted from Tana French’s bestsellers by Sarah Phelps (Ordeal by Innocence, The ABC Murders), Dublin Murders looks and feels authentic. Greene and Scott, two young stars on their way up, make a convincing duo and everything is primed to generate maximum suspense and shudders before bedtime.

But even though the writers and a central character were women, this was not quite the feminist drama I had hoped for. We were still left looking at a young female victim lying on a mortuary slab, as seen in too many other dramas down the years. That said, the scene where Cassie gazed at the girl (“Oh sweetheart, your little face,”) was intensely moving.

In Giri/Haji (BBC2, Thursday), a tale set in Tokyo and London, the footwear of choice was slippers. We saw a Japanese financier in London change into mules when he got home. Later, a detective in Tokyo did the same. It was a clever way of linking the stories, but was it too clever?

The same question kept popping up as the hour went on and we learned more about the detective, Kenzo (Takehiro Hira) and his gangster brother Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka). Yuto was supposed to be dead, but the murder in London bore his signature and was linked to organised crime. Big brother was duly despatched to London to pick up Yuto and stop further killings among the Yakuza.

Everything had to be done hush hush, hence his posing as a student on a course run by a Scots detective (Kelly Macdonald).

See what I mean by too clever-clever? And that is before the flashbacks shot in moody black and white, the split screens, plus an animated segment, all of which kept drawing this viewer out of the story. Still, the dialogue was slyly funny, the performances solid, and I want to know who put that snake in Macdonald’s letterbox. Detectives are not the only nosey folk.

Snackmasters (Channel 4, Thursday) continues to be a moreish watch. This week, host Fred Sirieix teased two Michelin starred cooks into trying their hand at replicating a Burger King Whopper. It proved quite the challenge, particularly getting the sesame seeds to stick to the buns. Turned out the secret was a spray of water. That technique was disclosed, others were not. It was almost as if these giant multinational corporations had invested millions in developing their products and were not going to give the game away to any Tom, Dick, or Lisa. How mysterious. Not.