ITV Shetland's Tosh star speaks out on 'clever' replacement for DI Jimmy Perez

Alison O'Donnell has finally broken her silence on the departure of her esteemed colleague Dougie Henshall from the beloved series Shetland, where they had established a strong rapport over seven seasons since 2013.

The shock announcement of Dougie's exit over two years ago left fans devastated and longing for his character DI Jimmy Perez crafted by author Anne Cleaver with Alison portraying his junior, Detective Sergeant Alison "Tosh" McIntosh.

With season seven's conclusion, we saw Dougie bid farewell to DI Perez, making way for Ashley Jensen to step in as DI Ruth Calder for the eighth series. This momentous shake-up by producers was a significant risk given the show's considerable fanbase.

In an impactful twist, onscreen DI Jimmy Perez sacrificed himself to save an innocent man, eventually resigning from the force and escaping with his love Meg (played by Lucianne McEvoy) with ambitions to begin afresh elsewhere.

Despite reservations about altering the cast line-up, it would seem that the audacious decision has paid dividends. Rather than attempting to replicate the charm of Perez, the introduction of Jensen's DI Ruth Calder has imbued the series with fresh energy.

The series continues to flourish post-cast change, impressing even ardent fans like Lorraine who expressed surprise at how engrossed she became with the new dynamic brought on by the leading ladies of the show, reports .

Lorraine opened the discussion on the recent cast change, which remains a hot topic, by saying: "Do you know what's really interesting, obviously hugely successful we have Dougie Henshall as Jimmy Perez, fantastic and originally with the books by Ann Cleeves and now we've got a new person coming in Ashley."

The Scottish presenter praised the transition: "And it works beautifully." She went on to say: "And the two of you it's like Shetlands Cagney and Lacey."

As a photo of Alison and Ashley was shown to the audience, Lorraine remarked: "Look at them there. But it has worked really well and it's a totally different dynamic."

Alison responded to Lorraine's comments, stating: "What I think was so clever is we have such a lovely loyal following who have been with the show from the start and they were really used to that first aberration of the show and so what I think what was so smart was we never tried to impersonate that."

Addressing her co-star's departure for the first time, Alison, known for playing Tosh in the series, added: "How can you impersonate Dougie? Nobody could ever live up so what they did was just shifted it all up and said, 'How about something a little bit different?'"

She went on to detail Ashley's integration into the team, remarking: "Here are two women, totally different flavour profile, new dynamic lots of different sort of textures to play with but I always felt really responsible for also maintaining like the house style because you don't want the show to be unrecognisable for those who have taken it to their hearts."

Lorraine airs weekdays on ITV1, from 9am.