Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Ashley Jensen, Alison O’ Donnell, Steven Robertson, Lewis Howden, Anne Kidd, Stuart Townsend, Clive Russell, Greg McHugh, Ellie Haddington, Louise Brealey, Niall MacGregor, Chloe-Ann-Tylor, Samuel Anderson, Marie MacDonell, Lila Rose, Adam Rhazali, Jennifer Hartland, Steven Miller, Francis Grey, Adam McNamara.
Even on a small island there are places where secrets are so well hidden that they could lay undisturbed for hundred of years, just as with artifacts finally unearthed from a long lost bronze age discovery, what comes to light will leave some wondering how it was never found before, and for others the information will be too much to bare, the secret laid bare worth killing for.
Shetland is no different to any other reclusive island, and the television series that bares its name has found a way to showcase this over the previous nine outings in such a way that it borders on the psychological impact of the unity and balance of those affected. Series 10 though reveals a kind of darkness that is hard to ignore, a small decision made that ended the lives of people from a close-knit community and which when unveiled sees the repercussions and fall out spread to the point where even law and order is threatened.
The return of Stuart Townsend to television is a most welcome one, and in his role of the island’s most famous poet son, one caught in his own dilemmas and scrapes with a disagreement with his mother, the sense of the majestic soul hooves into view, the rugged troubled man finding perhaps love with Ashley Jensen’s DI Ruth Calder offering the viewer a kaleidoscope of hope in amongst the storm that physically threatens the peace of the north British outpost.
The tenth series though offers one piece of endearing back story, too long has Lewis Howden been in a position of support in the series history, be it across the lengthy stay of the mindful and generous nature of Douglas Henshall’s terrific outing as DI Jimmy Pérez, or in the Ruth Calder era, and in one sensational story line the actor and the character are springboarded to the front of the viewer’s mind. The interplay between him and the redoubtable Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh, played with enormous detail and affection by Alison O’ Donnell, is worthy of anything that such detectives dramas can offer.
Secrets are magnified and their exposure can bring down even the tightest of communities; a framework of storytelling which brings out the best in Shetland.
Ian D. Hall