Over the last few months a television series my sweetie-wife I have enjoy is Shetland. Based on a series of mystery novels by Ann Cleeves the series takes place on the far north Scottish island of Shetland where DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Jimmy Perez solves murders and balances being a widower father and returning island native.

The series has run for three seasons and a total of 14 episodes, 8 of which are direct adaptation of the original novels with the final 6 an original mystery created by the producers.

It is those final six, the entirety of the third season where the show disappointed me. With the earlier adaptations two episodes were used for each novel and the general mood of each piece was one of clues, detective work, and hidden motives. The final storyline became a tangles mess of witness protection, mob corruption, and amazing coincidences that came off more like a standard cop show than the original mysteries I had enjoyed.

I was particularly annoyed with one sub-plot in the final season.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Six episodes long that story broke into a three-act structure with two episodes per act. As the end of the second act one of the police characters is kidnapped by the mob to send a message to DCI Perez. Naturally it is our sympathetic female cop DS Allison ‘Tosh’ Macintosh. As soon as the third act opens she is released but naturally there has been a sexual assault.

I can’t tell you how tired I am of the third act assault/killing/murder to motivate the hero. Here there is no real plot justification, the entire subplot could be removed with very little effect on the main and convoluted story. It is cliché, and it uses the sexual assault not as the principle event of it’s own story but as a plot detail in someone else’s story. Yes the writers deal with it tastefully, never showing it, never making it titillating, exploring ramifications for Tosh and the people around her, and even a little lecturing by our heroes on the injustice women face when trying to have these crimes prosecuted, but it’s all sub-plot and a tired, worn out sub-plot at that.