Woo hoo! BritBox has set the North America premiere date for the highly-anticipated return of the hit Scottish mystery-crime drama series Shetland!
After playing beloved Detective Jimmy Perez for seven seasons, Douglas Henshall has passed the baton to BAFTA and Primetime Emmy® nominee Ashley Jensen (Ugly Betty, Extras), who joins the cast in Season 8 of fan-favorite series Shetland, based on characters in the best-selling “Shetland Mystery” novels by award-winning crime writer Ann Cleeves.
Jensen plays DI Ruth Calder, a native Shetlander who returns to the Isles after 20 years working for The Met in London. In Shetland, she will work closely with DS Alison “Tosh” McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell, Holby City), DC Sandy Wilson (Steven Robertson, The Bay), Sgt. Billy McCabe (Lewis Howden, The Harrowing), and forensic pathologist Cora McLean (Anne Kidd, Outlander).
In the six-episode eighth season, DI Ruth Calder returns to Shetland on the trail of Ellen Quinn (Maisie Norma Seaton), the scared witness to a London gangland murder — a case for which Tosh pauses her investigation into a string of sinister animal deaths in Lerwick to help Calder find Ellen before it’s too late.
Ellen’s family are the influential and notorious Bains, led by dominant matriarch Grace Bain (Phyllis Logan, Downton Abbey). Calder and Tosh discover Ellen’s mother and father, Stella (Dawn Steele, Monarch of the Glen) and Kieran Quinn (Barry O’Connor, Outlander), haven’t seen Ellen since she left for London six months ago and are surprised to hear that she’s back in Shetland. Matters are made worse when armed London gangsters Howell (Don Gilét, Sherwood) and Nowak (Arnas Fedaravičius, The Last Kingdom) arrive on the Isles to silence Ellen. As the case gathers momentum, Calder and Tosh are stunned by news of a brutal murder that has all the hallmarks of organized crime — followed by another shock.
Beyond the case, Calder is faced with figures from her past, including her ex-boyfriend, Cal Innes (Jamie Sives, Annika), and estranged younger brother, Alan (Steven Miller, Payback). Now the minister of their late father’s old church, Alan has a starkly different view than Ruth of their shared childhood.
Also featuring in Season 8 are Lorraine McIntosh (Taggart), Ann Louise Ross (Good Omens), Conor McCarry (The Loch), Angus Miller (Guilt), Nina Toussaint-White (Witness Number 3), Tibu Fortes (Sister Boniface Mysteries), Russ Bain (Peaky Blinders), Eubha Akilade (The Diplomat), and Kevan Mackenzie (Bad Boys).
Shetland: Season 8, a BritBox Original, premieres in North America on Wednesday, November 29, exclusively on BritBox. New episodes will drop weekly on Wednesdays through January 3, 2024.
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