Shetland will return to the BBC next year, Douglas Henshall has confirmed.
The hugely popular detective drama series, filmed on the Shetland Islands, was last on our screens more than a year ago.
Fans were left wanting more from DI Jimmy Perez and his team.
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Shetland stars Steven Robertson as DC Sandy Wilson, Alison O’Donnell as DS Alison ‘Tosh’ Mcintosh, and Douglas Henshall as DI Jimmy Perez.
Douglas Henshall cast doubt on whether there would be another series after the season finale of the last run aired in March 2019.
He tweeted: “To everyone asking about another series of Shetland. It’s the BBC who commission it and they still haven’t made a decision whether or not they want more. That’s where it’s at.’
Douglas has now confirmed that there WILL be a sixth and seventh series of the BBC drama Shetland.
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He tweeted this week: “For everyone asking about the next series of Shetland. The plan is that we start filming next February and shoot two series back to back all being well. So fingers crossed.”
Douglas teased fans by adding: “The scripts are good, I know that much.”
His followers shared their happiness, with one saying they were “super excited” and another saying they “couldn’t wait”.
For everyone asking about the next series of Shetland. The plan is that we start filming next February and shoot two series back to back all being well. So fingers crossed. The scripts are good, I know that much. #shetland
— Douglas Henshall (@djhenshall) September 27, 2020
Douglas also responded to criticism that the Scottish-based drama doesn’t use actors with the correct dialect.
He wrote: “One day I’ll write a thread about this but safe to say we have used almost every professional actor from Shetland and many local people throughout the five series of Shetland.
“If you want the accents to be authentic then you need local actors. Due to population size, there’s only a handful of professional actors from Shetland and, as I’ve said, we’ve used almost all of them. The difficulty in asking guest actors to ‘do’ a Shetland accent is very risky.”
The plan is that we start filming next February and shoot two series back to back all being well. So fingers crossed.
He added: “It’s risky because it’s a very difficult sound to make well and we have had one or two cases of actors sounding about as authentic as Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins and that’s the last thing we want. So it’s a dilemma.”
Douglas, 54, has played Jimmy Perez ever since 2013.
Jimmy saved the life of trafficked immigrant Zizi in the last series.
Viewers saw original character Sandy Wilson suspended after his negligent policing led to a suspect taking their own life in a prison cell.
Fans hoped for a new series this year but, due to coronavirus restrictions, filming was unable to take place as per usual.
Shetland is adapted from Anne Cleves’ series of novels.
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