Shetland S08
The first thing you see on IMDB’s page for Shetland is a picture of Doug Henshall, but as was inferred from the ending of Season 7, his character Jimmy, has left the islands. It’s a bit of a relief, really; Jimmy had become increasingly disillusioned with police work and was moaning around the place. I’m not sure if it was meant to signify Jimmy’s frustration, or if Henshall himself was tired of the being on the show, but especially in Season 7, it seemed like Henshall was having to force each word out of his mouth at great effort. I do wonder if he will show up again, perhaps in a scenario where he is on the other side.
So who do we get instead? First off, his longtime deputy Tosh has taken over his job. They have been expanding the character in recent seasons, but I am still not sure Tosh is a lead character, so it is good they have brought in another character. Ashley Jensen, who you might know from her role as a ditzy crime solver tottering around on high heels in the Agatha Raisin series, comes on board in a more serious role as an investigator named Ruth, originally from Shetland, who has been making her name in London, but ends up returning home in search of a witness on one of her cases. By a stroke of lick, this happens just after Jimmy left. What a fortunate coincidence....
Tosh and Ruth quickly get stuck in investigating an interesting series of crimes that aren’t what they seemed, and before long, you can almost forget about Jimmy ever having been there. Mind you, assuming Jensen stays, they’ll have to do some more work establishing her character.
I did get fixated on one oddity as I watched Season 8. I come from an island on the west coast in temperate climes in the northern hemisphere, so I know that any such place is going to get a lot of rain, yet through the entire season the only indication I saw of any precipitation was a scene where the skies were blue but the roads were wet, presumably after a brief shower. As it happens, I have a friend who lives on Shetland, so I asked her about and she assured me it rains a lot, confirmed by the meteorological record which shows it rains on more than half the days each year. BTW, it turns out my friend actually appeared as an extra in two episodes of Season 8, though they were such brief glimpses I won’t even try to describe them. I hope she graduates to a bigger role in coming seasons.
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