'Vera's Season Finale Trailer Explores the Detective's Joys of Retirement

The detective series Vera is one of the few pervasively popular British cozy crime shows that reached household name status without ever officially airing on PBS. The show's first four seasons played as one-off reruns on local public broadcasting stations from 2011-2014, but starting with Season 5 in 2015; the show disappeared behind various "exclusivity" paywalls, first on Acorn TV before moving to BritBox in 2018 with Season 8. By then, the show had established itself as one of the best female-led detective series of the 2010s, the kind that could go for a quarter-century easily, like rival Midsomer Murders.

But time began to catch up with actor Brenda Blethyn, who plays the titular DC Vera Stanhope. The character was supposed to be on the verge of retirement in Season 1, and by Season 12, questions started surfacing as to how long Blethyn would stay with the series, which began reducing its four-episode count to three. (Filming TV shows is notoriously grinding; the late Maggie Smith said after Downton Abbey ended that, at the age of 81, she was too old ever to do that again; Blethlyn is currently 78.)

The answer turned out to be "through Season 14," officially the program's last installment. (Not to worry, Blethyn hasn't left acting; she's already filmed Saving Grace Again!, a follow-up to 2000's Saving Grace—yes, the film that initially spawned the character of Doc Martin—due out in 2025.) With the final season a compact two episodes, BritBox will also tack on the behind-the-scenes special, Vera: Farewell Pet, which will air the week after the Season 14 finale and will be viewers' final opportunity to say farewell.