Shetland season 8

[laplage]

Anyone else looking forward to the new season starting on Wednesday? It will seem a bit strange without Perez but looks to be a good cast and storyline so far as we know.

i thought it was funny when the Ashley character said, i want to spend a bit more time here now i have made up with my brother, and her brother promptly left her in the garden when his wife appeared!

TBF she said something more along the lines of 'We're sort of back on speaking terms'; their relationship is clearly a work in progress.

The drug money – I thought that too. If Tom had any sense he'd give it to the police and wash his hands of it quick-smart.

Bobby didn't plan to become a drug dealer, I don't think; he just wanted Cal to take the money to launder it. If he made some cash back from it then great.

if Bobby (and perhaps Ellen) always seemed to dismiss Kieran, then perhaps it just caught on with the rest of the family, even though they didn’t consciously know why But they didn't know Ellen wasn't Kieran's daughter, did they? Ellen found out that September. It wasn't clear whether Stella told Bobby when she got pregnant that it might be his, but I assumed she didn't.

Or maybe Catherine Cawood could return from the Himalayas(?) and decide she cant live without policing and could stomp round Shetland muttering twats. That'd be worth the (inflated) licence fee on its own

I don't know how they're going to keep Tosh and Ruth in it. Neither one of them can get demoted, but if one is written out the other needs a sidekick in the form of another deputy DI. Or maybe they'll jobshare the DI job?

Does anyone know where Ashley J's green jumper was from? Looked a bit like another Stories number, I thought.

I think you'd get long odds on Temporary Tosh getting the nod.

Tosh said she can't be DI unless she works elsewhere first so is clearly only going to be temporary and will then be assistant when they get a permanent DI, presumably AJ.

In other words, Tosh Actress will be on maternity leave during the next shooting season. I mean, back in Glasgow for exactly as long as it would feasibly take her to rack up the requisite experience before returning to Shetland.

It wasn't clear whether Stella told Bobby when she got pregnant that it might be his, but I assumed she didn't.

Surely he could have worked that out for himself??

How was it discovered that Ellen was Bobby's-I can't remember?

I remember Stella saying that she'd been having sex with Kieran for couple of months so thought it was more likely his than the one off with her brother😬

I suppose he could, but he might have believed Stella, who was presumably either telling everyone it was Kieran's or letting them believe that by omission.

I can't remember how it was found out either

If she goes away to train up to DI level, surely she can't be asked to be 'demoted' back to assistant to AJ when she comes back?

Omg, just seen Lorraine Mcintosh - Deacon Blue — played Heather Bain. Can’t believe I didn’t recognise her! I did like this season but really missed Perez. Even a cameo appearance would’ve been good. As I said to my OH, it’s like Taggart without the actor playing Taggart….just not quite the same.

Length of service establishing seniority? I have no idea how rank works in the police.

Do we know why/when Rona (Rhona?) left? I've been rewatching old episodes and hadn't realised she'd gone away for a while, been replaced by the intensely-staring Asian woman with the bun who always seemed to have a slightly edgy/'off' relationship with Jimmy, though to my memory nothing ever came of it, and then came back again? (I just remember Asian Bun Fiscal walking out with her box of belongings when she left and Jimmy being kind of weird and just saying 'Good luck' and no one else volunteering anything. Did they actually have a huge clash and I've forgotten? Their interactions always just looked like there was Unspoken Tension that was never actually clarified...)

Are we to assume that after Jimmy let the American guy go free despite an extradition warrant being in the pipeline at the end of the last season, Rhona also got into hot water and was fired/moved?

Agree that Harry seems a bit of a bleaty damp squib in a suit. Rhona would have been interesting for someone like Ruth to bounce off. She'd have torn strips off her.

I think the thing that surprised me most about the finale was Kieran going from Wet Lettuce to Murderous Strangler within about two seconds, even if Ellen was shouting unpleasant things at him.

I think one of the oddities of the writing of this episode was always, for me, Ellen's characterisation. So much of it happened 'offstage', in that she was already dead, and we kept being told about her by other people, or having her motivations (Petty criminal in a really nasty red dress in London! Pagan! Rebel! friend of the unfairly-treated Knoxes! Sensitive and upset by child's death! Inpatient at Suspicious Dr Whatsit's Clinic! So rude to the bus driver after her money was stolen she was thrown off the bus!) speculated about.

By the time she reappeared at the Bains' farm in the flashback at the end of the final episode to see Rory (or was he Ruaidhrí?), I'd completely forgotten why she was injured, and had forgotten the two hitmen completely.

But I was actually inclined to agree with Evil Bain Matriarch that Ellen was trouble, which I'm not sure was the intended effect. Mind you, her biological father looked like he was born to play villains...

Bobby was being a bit mad giving the money to Tom Knox, surely, even if kindly meant? If it's criminal cash, it's perfectly possible there'll be an alert when the notes start being used, and the Shetland police are well aware there's a stash of money about unaccounted for, if a very poor teenager with a very ill mother starts flashing the cash?

Also, has anyone said where Jimmy is supposed to have gone with Meg? Is Cassie still running Duncan's wine bar? Could Ruth sublet Jimmy's house? I kind of miss it.

I have never seen Agatha Raisin. is the character played like she did it in this ? Sweary and impatient?

In looking at media reports re this series to see in there is going to be another series, they balance seems to be lots of viewers liked it, and lots of viewers thought too many red herrings.

These red herrings have been menitoned here. I cant understand this "complaint". So many crime dramas survive 6 - 8 episodes because the initial investigation goes off in the wrong direction. And also (of course) to lull you into thinking character x is just a sort of extra!

And also, meant we get to go on lots of car drives to scenic views in Shetland to meet yet another Scottish eccentric, living some strange life.

Has there every been a tv crime series where from the start the detectives immediately intuit who the villian is and that's all the plot is. Catching them!!

Oh yes, London Kills, which is now so stupidly simple (and terrible acting) that it is almost unbearable to watch.

Agatha Raison makes Midsommer Murders look intelligent.

And let Ashley Jensen wear improbably fashion in a very prettily British village.

It has been quite a good radio series, but I think tv thought we cant have a sensible older woman as the main character.

In fact hard to believe, but probably even more silly than the far fetched Signora Volpe where Emily Fox wears even more improbably clothes, but thinks it is a serious drama. Actually just an hour long tv ad for visit Italy.

Well I don't recall other series of Shetland being packed with red herrings/plotlines that didn't go anywhere. I'm very surprised by the claims of 'best ever viewing figures', as I thought this series was well below the standard of the previous ones.

But I'm sure the red herrings in previous Shetlands were tangentially connected to the main storyline? Or at least played into the personal life storylines somehow.

I may be proved wrong though when Hitman 1 stays on the island and retrains as a driving instructor.

best ever viewing figures

If that's based on an earlier post I made, it wasn't best ever. That was series 6, whatever that was about.

But definitely not one of the worst.

It may be true that Shetland series haven't had too many "red herrings" but that would have been to stop Jimmy from getting totally baffled and having more time to moon around!!

Perhaps they could send Tosh "away" and then she can return for the next case as the "visiting" DI from Inverness (or wherever) and annoy AJ's character

I wish that they would make use of the later original Shetland books by Ann Cleeves for the TV show. The early series based on the books were great.

In particular I think that "Thin Air" would be great when a group of Londoners (PR/advertising/media types) head up to a remote part of Shetland for an old Uni mate's wedding. Then there are disappearances that seem to mirror an old folk tale.

Season 6 had several big storylines. It was the return of the murderer/Duncan storyline as well as the murder of the pipeline guy that was caught on drone cameras

Season 6 was the one that started with the murder of the lawyer Alex Galbraith, on the day of Jimmy’s mother’s funeral, and his dementia-sufferer dad comes to stay with him, and Donna Killick is released to general disgust.

X-posted, @Lunde.

Yes, my bad, @IwantToRetire . Not the best, but good.

Thanks for hints about series 6. Funny I only remember the Dad and his dementia, not the crime plot line at all. One thing about retaining such little info, is I can watched series 2 if not 3 times.

But I think much as some of us like it (in different ways) it only gets less than half the viewing figures of for Instance Line of Duty 15 million.

Whereas I found Line of Duty far too tense and plotty, and got bored after a season or two, especially as I kept going ‘Oh, look, X Street’ (as it was filmed in Belfast, pretending to be Birmingham).

I like Shetland for not being too plotty, or not too single-plotline-focused, and for the landscape. My least favourite season, despite excellent characters and performances, is the one set mostly in Glasgow (though I really appreciated how Tosh’s rape was written) because of the lack of Shetland.

i always have to remind myself that (I believe?) only some of the exterior shots are filmed on Shetland, so most of the landscape I’m enjoying is the mainland…

I might be wrong but I seem to recall they did do this one. (Or perhaps I'm just remembering the book).