'Shetland' Earns Double Renewal, Will Run Through Season 10

Changing lead actors several years into a long-running series is never easy. Even though shows like Call The Midwife and Doctor Who make it look easy, it's always risky when Grantchester changes vicars or Unforgotten brings in a new Detective Chief Inspector. The longer the series goes with the original lead, the harder it is to start swapping out leads, a factor that Shetland had to deal with when Douglas Henshall decided he was finished playing DCI Jimmy Pérez seven seasons into the series. However, Shetland Season 8's casting Agatha Raisin's Ashley Jensen as the new DCI in charge of solving crimes on the titular archipelago wound up working as a soft reboot of the series, and the BBC is so pleased with the results that the show has been commissioned for not one, but two more seasons.

Originally based on the Anne Cleeves novels, the same author that invented Vera Stanhope of Vera, the series has gone off in its own direction since Season 3, when it moved from two-episode adaptations of her novels to season-long cases invented by the series' lead writer Dave Kane. Though DCI Jimmy Pérez was Cleeves' character, the series was named for the area, not the detective, making it much easier for it to transition to a more ensemble-style show with a new detective heading up the cases (with Cleeves' blessing, natch).

While some were concerned that Jensen's Ruth Calder would not be able to match Henshall's popularity or, worse, come off as some sort of pale imitation of Stanhope, instead, her detective is very much her own character, a new take on the "detective who returns home after decades away in London." This has also given the show a fresh injection of energy and the promise of being able to run for at least another seven seasons, if not more.