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DI Ruth Calder and DI Alison “Tosh” McIntosh are back as Shetland celebrates its 10th series with a very fishy mystery - but getting to the set of the show was a chore in itself. The new season of the hit BBC One crime drama, based on the books written by Ann Cleeves , opens with the detecting duo sharing a rare moment of downtime in their car before Calder and Tosh are called to stop a boat suspected of carrying drugs. The scene proved a test of endurance for Ashley Jensen , who plays Calder, as she had to rifle through a cart of dead fish after a tip-off. “It was real fish but the smell wasn’t as bad as you might anticipate,” Ashley says. “It was fresh fish but it was eight in the morning. I was flinging them about and I was getting bits of fish in my face. But I love all that.” Things soon take a darker turn when an elderly woman called Eadie is found strangled to death – a case that shakes the team to its core. But Ashley teases this series is about more than murder. “It’s my favourite season in terms of the script, apart from my first one,” she says. “It interweaves all of our personal lives into the murder case.” Even DC Sandy Wilson, ( Steven Robertson ), and Sergeant Billy McCabe ( Lewis Howden ) feel the fallout. “We’re all looking at each other and thinking ‘who are you?’” Ashley says. Tosh, on the other hand, taps into her inner disciplinarian. “I aptly named her Dark Tosh. We see a side of her we’ve never seen before. She starts to lose her faith in policing. Everything starts to fall apart,” says Alison O’Donnell , who plays Tosh. There’s also a hint of romance on the horizon for Ruth. “She’s in a place where she’s doing dating apps , because she feels she has to,” Ashley says. But the investigation could lead her heart somewhere unexpected – Eadie’s handsome son, Ed, played by Stuart Townsend . “He’s got this complicated relationship with his mum and Calder had a complicated relationship with her dad,” Ashley explains. Alison warns that the investigation will hit close to home. “This story is going to affect our team and it’s going to bring out things from the past,” she says. Off-screen, the Shetland weather remains the cast’s greatest adversary. For Ashley, who lives in Bath, getting there was sometimes harder than filming itself. “Me and about 15 of the crew always take an airplane when we go over there,” she says. “But we had to divert to Orkney and touch down there. We couldn’t get to Shetland. We all sat on the tarmac for about two hours. Then we have to go back and spend the night in a hotel in Aberdeen.” Having played Tosh since the show began, Alison had to adapt to a new dynamic when Ashley joined the eighth series in 2023. “I remember trying to find my feet during the first few weeks, because I’d been doing this for a long time and had an established rhythm,” Alison says. “But after a few weeks, it became clear to me that Ashley is the most true collaborator.” Ashley adds, “Sometimes, you meet people and you go, ‘I can’t remember not knowing you,’ which is a good thing.” Ashley’s own career has taken her from Scotland to Hollywood – she starred as Christina McKinney in Ugly Betty – but she says Shetland is where she belongs. “When I first got to Shetland, it was like coming home,” says the Annan native. “I don’t need to go back to America and prove anything. I feel as if I really have done all that and enjoyed it. I’m not that person, I’m so Scottish inherently.” Despite the long hours and unpredictable weather, both actresses agree the atmosphere on set is joyful – even eccentric, sometimes filled with costume parties. “They’ve become a bit of a thing,” says Ashley. “They have a theme. Last year we had a maritime theme and this year was puffins. The make-up girls absolutely went to town.” Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .
