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.

Perez was very easy on the eye.
Sighs.

Already enjoying this series more than the last one (I loved Perez but I think they'd just taken the character as far as it could go). However, it still irritates/amuses me that there's almost no one with a Shetland accent in the whole programme - they're all from Glasgow or (in Jamie Sives' case) Leith. If they're going to make it that Ruth Calder grew up there, she might at least try to have a trace of a Shetland accent!

The girls father is an Irish actor and he didn't even make the slightest effort at a Scottish accent.

Perhaps that's why the family don't like him - plot twist!

... or not 😎

I didn’t really understand why they wouldn’t have just shot Ellen once they realised she had lost the bag?
I thought it was just ok so far. Loved Tosh though.

It might have been because she would be able to recognise the man that took it.

I thought it might be a plot twist too.

It is almost as though there is a Scottish Theatre / TV troupe, and they all take it in turns to play different parts in different plays / series.

But with her out of Deacon Blue and him from the Last Kingdom, plus both of Donna Noble's husbands from Doctor Who.

And the real question is, was Jamie Silves wearing a wig for Annika and Guilt or does his hair just grow really fast?

I enjoyed it.

It reminded me more of earlier series I think.

I think it was Ellen at the end.

I had thought that her family trying to find her might be what "did for her"!

I think it was Ellen at the end, and presumably her eye-catching red jacket will serve as a plot point somewhere along the line.

Incidentally, my friend in work went to school with the girl who plays Ellen - apparently she's a very talented singer! Maybe her and Lorraine from Deacon Blue will do a duet in a flashback 😂

I'm glad it's finally on. I'd settled down in anticipation last night.

I have to admit that I’m loving two female lead characters.

Not sure what to think after that except the helper guy with the beard and glasses looks dodgy. The one who was at Amms and Alan's. Amma was smoking the same fags as we're at the cottage Ellen was hiding out at.

Far too many male characters, I'm getting completely mixed up with who's who! And they all seem a bit dodgy.

Why does Sandy look so different? Has he put on weight, having always been extremely skinny? Ruth Calder had excellent boots.

Was slightly confused by the semi-sympathetic characterisation of the hitmen — the hothead who kills an elderly shopkeeper is all excited about seeing puffins, and the other one has a daughter and a wife with recurrent breast cancer?

No reference to Tosh’s partner and baby? (Or has a huge amount of time passed, despite Tosh being magically ageless, and the ‘baby’ is a teenager? A troubled sheep-killing teenager?)

Maybe they should just write out the male characters (apart from Billy), and all the power play, family machinations, and connivingness could be done by flinty matriarchs? Who would win in a fight between the Bain matriarch, Cora and the former nurse with the gun?

Yes, like the guy who Cal told at the end, "Your life of crime is over". what was his backstory, do we know? Obviously into drug-smuggling with Cal.

I like the Cagney & Lacey vibes from Tosh & Ruth. And the reassurance at the end that no animals were harmed during filming.

The story definitely moves along more briskly without the long interior scenes of emotional gloom in Jimmy's turquoise kitchen and Tosh's complex feelings about Donny and motherhood.

Wondering about the cig butts. Does Shetland do red herrings/unlikely coincidences? In some shows, I'd say sure, but here maybe not so much.

Yes, was also thinking the guy with the glasses who was at Ashley Jensen’s brothers house is dodgy.

Although the cast is looking a wee bit like a Casualty reunion.

Why does Sandy look so different? Has he put on weight, having always been extremely skinny?

He’s discovered the pie cupboard?

About the only person who doesn't seem to have been mentioned is Cal's father... so it's obviously him

I enjoyed the first episode.

Jimmy Perez was really not a great actor so it's good to see how Tosh will do without him!

I'll not have you say a word against Perez. @TheSpikySpinosaurus

I’m enjoying Lenny from Casualty as the minister-brother. I will be extremely disappointed if he’s been involved in quasi-ritualistic sheep murders. And slightly less disappointed if he strangled the girl. Ideally, though, he will actually be a well-behaved minister on a tv show, which would be a nice change.

His wife, otoh, is probably bumping off the sheep for kicks. She’s probably Cassidy in disguise.

Although I mostly imagine this mysterious Cassidy as Natalie Cassidy gone rogue…

Ah, fair enough... but his only expression was a confused one, like Charlie in Casualty, and it pissed me off...

Just came across Perez in ' Who is Erin Carter?' - very disappointed in him