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.

Thanks @RandomersAssociation I had forgotten all of that!

Thanks Bebbanburg, Jimmy! The sad eyes!

Yeah Annie as a character is entirely implausible from the POV of the final episode.

But if all the effort was to conceal the lizard then maybe that's justified but it does now feel a bit fraught with red herrings.

However the two leads are so well written and performed and have such a sense of being real people., I would happily watch them in a tortuous plot next time.

Looking back, I now feel the BBC missed a trick by not using the shot of Noah wrapped in his aunt’s arms as promotion material - maybe with her face blurred or omitted.

Extraordinary performance from him.

Yes Noah was extraordinary

Jenson and O'Donnell - I really love them

I liked the idea of the book ending of Ruth being held at gunpoint in the cottage at the start with her in the car with Noreen at the end. Except then she got an inadmissible confession, and then got out of the car leaving the baby alone with a murderer without establishing whether she really had got rid of the gun.

As a series, Sandy and Billy were wasted and there were too many meandering leads which didn't seem to lead to much but more questions. But I liked the set up in the bar with the miniscule drinks. Tosh is growing up.

Not sure why everyone is complaining about too many plot lines!

Its a "detective" story. There must be any number of real life situations where dectives start off down one avenue of potential culprits only to realise that it is a dead end.

And even more likely when the crucial fact was secret.

I think the spy element and the unlicensed treatment (or whatever it was) was a bit over the top. Could have had, I dont know, illegal whisky distillery or something.

I never suspected the culprit. In fact half the time I couldn't remember who ever one is. These Shetland familes are a nightmare. You almost feel all new borns should be taken into care, because otherwise they grow up with historic family grudges, or mental distress.

But really liked the last scene. Thought it was very well done, and gave Ruth a chance not to be an old grump. But not only was she late (I empathise) but she hadn't made the effort that Tosh had to dress up. (Is it part of the plot that Tosh's clothes always look wrong?)

And as before, that young boy was just brilliant.

re families - dont suppose anyone could draw a family tree of the culprit? I cant quite fit them all in together.

This is the most helpful cast list I’ve found - it explains all the relationships, @IwantToRetire.

www.denofgeek.com/tv/shetland-series-9-cast-meet-the-new-characters/

Yes that sort of helps, but interesting they didn't bother mentioning Bergen!

So the Bett sister put her rapist husband above her sister in law - therefore her brother and her nephew.

The reveal was poor. I don't even remember seeing Noreen in it before!

Liked the ending scene but wasn't worth six hours of watching the rest of it. Don't think I'd bother with another series.

Honestly, I've watched worse shows in recent times and not thought twice about it! I think it's more than Shetland used to be better than this. There's always the scenery and the knitwear, but viewers had come to expect a lot more.

Yes leaving the murderer in the car was sloppy police work Ruth! It was like she couldn't be arsed to keep it up.

Billy and Sandy being totally sidelined like women in old fashioned detective shows like the Sweeny (not that I really watched them but I imagine there were typists at the police station making tea).

Poor Sandy gets told to chase whatever up by women (👏) and turns purposefully towards his computer and starts tapping with a crime fighting air.
And Billy gets to talk about CCTV footage.

I enjoyed the series, the ending with Tosh and Ruth and the killer reveal, but I was left thinking 'What?! Is that the last episode of the series?!'. Too many loose ends left untied and unanswered questions for me. I was expecting another episode after this one. I agree with pps that Billy and Sandy are underused. I do hope that there is going to be another series though.

I don't usually get to watch much TV, but it's been nice to have Shetland, Strictly, Moonflower Murders, Asia and Wolf Hall to look forward to recently with the dark evenings and poor weather. Although I agree with pps that the writing perhaps isn't as good as it used to be, I'll miss Shetland mid-week and not just for the scenery and woolly sweaters!

When Ruth got out of the car I thought it was odd, then remembered she had taken the keys. But I guess there could have been a weapon in there.

There was a fleeting moment in an earlier episode where the murderer went outside onto the porch area and looked shifty but otherwise I didn’t think it was her until they put the petrol station bank evidence to the rapist - his surprise meant I knew what the6 would see on the CCTV.

I do agree with those saying there were too many loose ends. I get that they were all rabbit holes/red herrings for the cops but there seemed to be such meaning behind each strand it’s weird how in the end it was all about a woman with misplaced loyalties and fear of consequences.

I wondered briefly whether Ian would take the baby in a kinship care way, but then realised he would be caring for the child of his wife’s murderer who took the Mum of his son away…so I can see that not working out.

There must be any number of real life situations where detectives start off down one avenue of potential culprits only to realise that it is a dead end

Because effective screenwriting is nothing at all like actual policework. The general principal of 'Chekov's gun' applies to good writing, even within the context of police procedurals.

The problem with this series, or one of the problems, was that the two deaths were essentially unrelated to pretty much anything else in any of the plots, and that a huge amount of screentime was devoted to elaborate backstories (Annie's spy days, Karin as possible defence mole/Brutus, Stefan as sponsor of illegal gene therapy, Bergen and the gambling evenings, the inner workings of Donnie and Tosh's not-very-nice friendship group) that appear to have been designed by the writers primarily to bulk out six episodes. Plus all the completely unresolved plot points.

Did we ever find out why Bergen abruptly finished his relationship with the son of the gambling man?

No, I think that was yet another loose end/non sequitur.
I still don't get why Annie and Bergen went to the croft at all.
It was a huge mess; way too many characters, too much weight given to things that turned out to be dead ends, the baddie(s) only being properly introduced with about 20 minutes of the last ep to go. I did think in an earlier ep when Noreen and her husband (forgotten his name) warned the cops off Lisa because she was a 'bad lot', or words to that effect, they were both acting a bit suss, but it was a fleeting moment. Annie absolutely didn't need to have been a spy or had that 'secret previous life' in London and I didn't find her convincing about it at all, although I do like the idea in principle of someone with a rackety past coming somewhere small and remote to try to find peace and a normal life.
And yes, why was Angus drugged, and why did the lab have to be a hulking great conspicuous thing rather than, say, a discreet room in Karin and whatsit's big house? (if there even had to be a lab at all...)

Yes to all of this. I must admit, the casting of the actress who played Noreen did make me wonder a little, as I thought she looked on the older side to be a first time mother to a young baby, and she always looked very haggard and weatherbeaten . I have no idea how old the actress is, but I googled her, and she looks completely different (and very pretty) in headshots and other roles, so I'm assuming some (slightly weird?) decision by the production team to age her up and present her as hatchet-faced in order to contextualise that frightening shot where Noah looks up sees her very threatening-looking lower face under her hood in the 'lizard' coat.

(That rainy scene did make me laugh slightly in that it's the only time since Ashley Jensen has joined the show that Ruth has had anything other than total excellent hair in all kinds of climatic conditions -- but they had to make it rain so that Noreen would put her hood up and emerge as Threatening Figure...)

I think the point was she was always in the background so no one would suspect her of anything but being a good mum and auntie.

Interesting, @KitchenAngst! I must admit I wondered about Noreen, too - but wasn’t quite sure how or whether to articulate it.

Both she and her husband were suspect, simply from the fact of being ever present. I don’t know about red herrings / over complication. To an extent, yes - but I imagine it is slightly reflective of the fact that if you go poking about in people’s lives you’ll find all sorts of unexpected things. Isn’t that just the nature of investigation? So in the show, the crime is just an entry point for portraying the complicated, intertwined lives of residents and visitors.

(But the attack on Angus at the lab was just silly. And I could have done without the death of Annie’s friend’s son on the boat. Even as fiction it was more sadness than necessary - particularly as those characters didn’t appear at all in the final episode.)

I agree with the Chekhov’s gun point. The misdirect storylines were ludicrous - that huge lab for one scientist to work on gene therapy for one child PLUS the dodgy background of that child’s step-mother PLUS the random ex-spy wandering around, achieving nothing and then disappearing PLUS the bizarre death-by-boat-hook PLUS Angus and his conspiracy theories PLUS the weird and inexplicable decision of Annie and Bergen to hide out in a derelict croft…and for none of it to mean anything because the actual reveal was a rapist and his unhinged wife 🤷🏻‍♀️

I mean, there’s the willing suspension of disbelief required to watch your average British soap and then there’s this 😵‍💫

And when you kitting out a lab for gene therapy, the most important thing you need is a mechanical digger/backactor, of course. Maybe even two of them.

Can someone remind me please - when the police were getting alibis from Annie's family and friends, it was revealed that two of them were secretly together having an affair.

Who were they? I can't recall.

Yes Ian Hart's lovelorn, regret-addled former drug-addict spy! Too much and scaring the child at one point for no known reason.

And the senior male detective who only appears to state the obvious to the women.

That child is a star.

I haven’t seen anyone mention a glaring continuation error. When the bodies were found, Annie was on ground floor but Bergen was found in the loft, like he had tried to get away from the killer. But in the final episode his was shot near Annie, on ground floor. Or do I remember it completely wrong??

The swedish family, what was the point of them?