Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Douglas Henshall, Alison O’Donnell, Steven Robertson, Lewis Howden, Erin Armstrong, Mark Bonnar, Anne Kidd, Julie Graham, Stephen Walters, Neve McIntosh, Sean McGinley, Amy Lennox, Fiona Bell, Sophie Stone, Gerard Miller, Allison McKenzie, Julia Brown, Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson, Carolin Stoltz, Eleanor Matsuura, Joi Johannsson, Hannah Donaldson, Michael Moreland.
It is an island torn in two by tradition and by the modern world but one that sits comfortably in the seas as Britain’s most northern community, one tied to London and Edinburgh by politics and one surrounded by its own heritage and early settlers from across the North Sea in Norway. It is an island setting in which community and trust is perhaps more essential than other places due to its distance even from the Scottish shores, one in which the fine cold and damp mist lingers too readily with the torched red angered mist of dispute and one in which the island of Shetland has to be seen as dealing with any situation almost on its own, including that of murder.
The expanded storyline of Shetland to six episodes works well in this particular series, the closeness of the community of the island is turned on its head, especially when there are seemingly two related murders being investigated, when everybody can become a suspect until the final reveal, that is when a detective story has done its job fully and without complaint.
In Stephen Walter’s portrayal broken individual Thomas Malone, let down by justice, by the system and by his fellow islanders, the series had within its soul an actor who could carry the big scenes with greatness, his face to face stand off’s with Douglas Henshall were riveting and his quieter, nervous nature a dream in the scenes Neve McIntosh. Add to this quality of acting the secondary story of the disease of the rise of the far right in countries such as Norway, epitomised by Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson’s DS Lars Bleymann, and you have an explosive mix that didn’t disappoint in terms of dialogue and the pace of the story.
It is though to the aforementioned Douglas Henshall and the surrounding cast in which Shetland continues to work as a detective led drama. It is in the rugged loneliness felt in the lead character which personifies the nature of the islands, remote, its own ways of seeing the world and the quiet stillness which hides a multitude of raging emotions and possible outcomes.
Douglas Henshall’s Jimmy Perez really comes to the forefront in this series, conflicted by the past and his relationships with the possible suspects, his world weary demeanour as he realises some secrets have been kept too long and his personal drive to make sure his command is not threatened by revelations or by the mainland police, have made Jimmy Perez a detective you can trust for his word; something that is all too important in detective fiction.
A marvellous series, each episode carrying the story further into the dark heart that comes with island life, where everybody knows everybody in the community but hasn’t got a clue at the terrible secrets they hold close to their souls, Shetland is a paradise in both the seas and in the television schedules.
Ian D. Hall