Why has Douglas Henshall left Shetland? And what's in store in his final series?

"I was very ready to go — I think I'd done as much with the character as I could. And the slightly unique aspect to the show, of two men trying to parent a teenager [Perez is raising his stepdaughter Cassie with her biological father Duncan] and the grief over a dead wife, I didn't want those to become a trope. I thought if we pushed it any further, it might end up a bit clichéd. Plus the fact that Erin Armstrong, who plays Cassie, is 26 now — she's a grown woman!

"There's only so many people you can murder on an island, I didn't want the quality of the show to drop. I felt it was good for us to leave when we did, because I think the quality in the seven seasons that we've done has been remarkably high. And 10 years is also a very big chunk of time to spend doing anything, and I felt like that was enough."

"The year's suspension that he's had, and all of that stuff, is coming to an end, and then it's back to work — it all wraps up fairly quickly. The advantage that we had with having [seasons] six and seven to wrap up the show was that we could use a proper arc, and I think he's just getting to the stage where he's not sure whether he thinks it's worth it any more. I think he's beginning to discover that there are other things in life except being a policeman."

"Yeah, I loved that, I thought that was a really good way to go, because the body count was very high in series six and it all started to get a bit Gothic! I really liked the pace of it, I thought it worked very well as a way into series seven. The family have their own history, and we begin to unpick that a little bit. It turns out that Danny Cairns [Connor's father, played by Andrew Whipp] isn't really who he says he is, and it starts to get a little bit more political as the story goes on. It's very well put-together – I think it's going to keep people guessing all the way to the end."

"No, I think their relationship has got to the place where they trust one another implicitly, and he's very aware that she's a very capable, trustworthy partner. They're getting towards being friends as well, I think they care for one another very much. So I mean, it's no surprise that she would have been the Acting DI, because she's the most capable person there. I think he's very proud of her."

"When we finished series 5, Davy [David Kane, the writer/executive producer of Shetland] and I thought we've probably got about two more in us, then let's wrap it up. I still don't think it's really hit me properly. I remember the very last day of filming, we were in some car park and it was very anticlimactic! But I think once this series, this version of the show, is finished, it will probably hit me then."

"Yeah, I'll definitely miss him! I really enjoyed playing him. I couldn't have imagined myself doing anything for that amount of time, and I'm kind of surprised that I did, but one of the reasons was because I really enjoyed playing Jimmy Perez. I like him a lot, and I'll miss him. And I'll miss the place — I don't want to go back for a while, I think it would be a bit weird, but I'll definitely go back at some point in the future once I can just go and hang out!"