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.

Not at all! I'm enjoying it.

I don't remember Brian Cox!
Bill Paterson was excellent. Then again he always is.
I quite like Ashley J's character, but I do miss Perez and his relationship with Duncan.

Have just watched first 2 episodes of series 3, which again is star studded.

But some part of me realised I must have seen this series because I think with the Glasgow link to the crime on Shetland, this must be the series where Tosh goes to Glasgow with Perez.

And I do remember what happened to her, and at the time thought it a bit gratuitous, so may give up re-watching now.

Maybe this was the start of Shetland not being quite so bright and sparky as at beginning, and settling into gloom and despondency.

Or maybe I will just cheat and skip straight onto series 4.

Yes, this is the series when it happens (one of the later episodes — maybe 5), but I don’t think it’s gratuitous. I think it’s an exemplary example of how to deal intelligently and humanely with a crime that’s too often treated pruriently or gratuitously in tv and film. Here it happens off-stage, so there’s nothing voyeuristic, and while Tosh’s suffering isn’t minimised, you also see other people quietly horrified and trying to offer support in their own ways, rather than it turning into some kind of macho revenge crusade.

I've started rewatching from the first series and was surprised at just how much I remembered them!
I am glad they are doing another two series with Ashley Jensen and Tosh. Shetland was more than Perez for me, even though I loved his character. It's about the community and the scenery.

Agree. It’s the opposite of gratuitous. Perez’s demeanour in the immediate aftermath is quiet, shocked, sad, determined to be there with her and give her total professional and personal support. I think it’s probably Shetland’s finest moment.

Yes, and the bit where she tells well-meaning Billy she doesn’t want a hug.

I actually only realised recently how much the episode had affected me when I was watching Portrait Artist of the Year, where the celebrity sitters are asked to bring a personal prop. Rory Steward brought a pair of walking boots, which were displayed next to him, and it suddenly reminded me of when the team find Tosh’s boots at the abandoned nightclub.

I liked that Billy said he would like to give her a hug, clearly giving her the agency to say yes or no.

I see using the word gratuitous has made others think I was referring to graphic scenes or whatever.

What I meant was having a major female character then become the victim of male violence. Although I suspect in real life women working in front line services do suffer attacks from men (although newspaper reports would imply that women in various forces are far more at threat from their male colleagues).

So I did rewatch all of series 3, and it went out of its way to send the right messages to women in terms of support and feelings of guilt etc.. And in fact was impressed by the actress playing Tosh (who as I said in the early series seemed a bit ditzy) conveying a whole range of emotions and turmoil.

And yes the bit with Billy was touching, but I thought the scenes where she went and shouted at her admirer (the artist who liked drawing the open carcasses of animals) were really touching. He was obviously out of his depth, but provided tea and eventually covered her with a blanket when she fell asleep.

Again quite a starry cast in this series, and am always happy to see Anji Punjabi!

But still, despite the many violent men, women as the orchestrators of evil.

On a more trivial level I prefer Perez in his (second hand?) Naval Pea Coat - a hangover from student days?

So have now started on series 4 (with the Norway connection) and am already lost, so many characters who I still cant organise in my mind, and this is my second viewing.

But this series definitely seems to me where Shetland descended into it's down hearted struggle with life tone, and Perez starts to speak so slowy that by the time he gets to the end of what he is saying, you cant remember where he began from!

I loved her interaction with the drawing man. I thought it was so important to show her shouting at him and him not responding with anger or aggression but just letting her shout and then looking after her quietly and in an unobtrusive way.

I thought one of the most powerful moments was when Tosh was being examined at the SARC and Perez just sits beyond the curtain, feeling helpless but being there for her.

That scene at the SARC was what I was talking about. It’s so moving. He doesn’t know what to do/knows he can’t do anything, but is there.

Perez has started with his pea coat in season 3, Dead Water. The title credits also seemed to be the ones I remembered they were.

And again, the camera resists doing anything prurient from what I remember it stays behind the curtain with Perez? (I could be wrong, it's ages since I've seen that series, mostly because I never like series as much when they spend considerable amounts of time off the islands, even though the Glaswegian bits in this one are well-plotted and acted I thought Ace Bhatti as Calvin Sarwar was very good).

I can't think of too many portrayals of rape on TV or film where we literally never get some kind of scene that depicts the woman who has been raped as dishevelled, undressed, or does a close-up of her face as she's swabbed at the SARC etc. This just didn't do that, and did so without minimising the crime for one moment. We don't get a shot of a barefoot Tosh picking herself up from wherever she was dropped and walking miles back to the city. We get someone who shows up, says she's ok, and then completely matter-of-factly tells them to take her to the SARC. You can see her acting both as the seasoned professional she is, and as someone struggling with dealing with being a crime victim when she's used to being the investigator.

Just to say I have watch series 4 and 5 and not finding it as good as early series.

For me it is because Perez has just become this droning monotone, with little or no visual emotion. Compared to Duncan who can show a range of emotion in a minute.

And both these series, despite male culprits the focus, have the now standard theme of women with evil intent. And the endlessly entangled families. Far from being a promotion for Shetland it is more like a warning, dont live in an enclosed community, you will all go a bit nuts in the end.

Not sure I will plod on to the leaving of Perez.

Just a reminder, for anyone wondering, series 4 was about a man who had served time for a murder that was later found to be an unsafe conviction. So much of the plot was who was or wasn't somebody's father or child that I really needed a side bar quickly updating family trees. And the now recurring theme of Duncan facing comeuppance for earlier bad behaviour.

Series 5 is about trafficking and I think tried just a bit too hard to tick all the boxes of virtue signalling. But do remember from when I watch originally being really disturbed by the women being imprisoned. And yes, poor Duncan finds himself un(not)expectedly in the middle of the investigation. But do think, dreary as he now is, that Perez has a lucky escape from Alice(?) who didn't really seem to have the right motivation for chasing him so hard. Tosh has unexpectedly found someone she might just be able to partner with. Poor Sandy is now starting to find he is being pushed out and ignored by the inner circle.

I have in fact now watched series 6 and accidently started 7.

So what was interesting in the opening scenes of 7 is that these is Tosh who has been acting DI during her pregnancy and back in that role after a (very short?) maternity leave.

Things haven't fallen apart, everyone is happy, so it is odd that in series 8 she is shown as being a bit unsure at handling the job. Presumably to make it (apart from her family life) look like newly arrived super woman from the Met is much better choice to become the DI.

I had this fleeting thought of who was the Acting Acting DI while Tosh was on maternity leave?

Maybe this was Sandy's big moment and we never got a chance to see him as not just the go to dog's body.

Sandy as any type of DI is an unsettling thought…

Maybe Billy was allowed out of the station for once!

The plot of the next series will be fixing the miscarriages of justice for all the criminals prosecuted during Sandy’s time as a temporary DI!

Oh shame on you all.

I have a soft spot for Sandy as someone who tries so hard and never quite suceeds and doesn't always grasp what it going on.

But yes Billy could multi task while being DI and continuing to provide cups of tea and take away chips that somehow appear without him having to leave the station.

...

Sandy as Acting DI would be on a par with Father Dougal conducting funerals on Craggy Island in Ted's absence - with the resulting disproportionate carnage and terror and cake fridges upside down and on fire.

Nothing to do with the show, but I'm currently on Shetland, and have visited the Original Cake Fridge! Well, the cafe / tea shop. It was very nice. The actual fridge sells everything, not just cake.

New series starts on the 5th November. I doubt I'll watch as I didn't enjoy the last one and having rewatched all of them up to the last one it just reminds me how much I missed Jimmy Perez and the decent storylines(the incest storyline was just wrong for Shetland in my view).

Personally think they could have carried on with just Tosh, Sandy, Billy and Alex. They didn't need Ashley Jensen's character.

But Jimmy walking away with Meg would have been a great ending to the Shetland Series.

I honestly can’t stand Ashley Jensen’s acting or character.

Oh, thanks for the alert. I will be watching. I miss Perez, but I’m in it for the landscapes mostly.

Thought I was on my own with that opinion. Glad someone else feels like that.

Well, a few people have said that upthread. But some of us will continue to watch and enjoy it.