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Returning: Vera

Brenda Blethyn returns as DCI Vera Stanhope in March.

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Brenda Blethyn returns as DCI Vera Stanhope in Season 7 of Vera on ABC in early March.

There are 4 episodes, set around Newcastle and the stunning Northumberland countryside, with co-stars Kenny Doughty, Jon Morrison, Noof McEwan, Lisa Hammond and Riley Jones.

Other actors joining them include Christopher Colquhoun, Suzanne Packer, Robert Pugh, Ace Bhab, Struan Rodger, Annie Hulley, Emily Joyce  and Steve Evets.

This aired in the UK a year ago and on Pay TV in June.

Ep1: “Natural Selection”
DCI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) is drawn into a suspicious death on Ternstone, a remote and inaccessible island off the coast of Northumberland, home only to numerous species of birds and the rangers who observe them. The last thing they expected to see was a body, cruelly washed up on the shore. Gemma Wyatt, 28, was an experienced ranger who lived and worked on Ternstone for the Northumbria Wildlife Trust. While her devastated fiancé, Ryan (Matthew Wilson), and colleagues, led by Head Ranger Sophia (Suzanne Packer), believe Gemma’s death was an accident, marks found on her body quickly prove otherwise; Gemma was strangled. But as Gemma was left alone on the island overnight, the question remains, who could have made the treacherous journey out to sea and up the island’s impenetrable coastline to kill her, and why? As suspicions turn to Gemma’s family and workmates, Vera starts to piece together an altogether different portrait of the popular and successful ranger, aided by DS Aiden Healy (Kenny Doughty), DC Hicham Cherradi (Noof McEwan), DC Kenny Lockhart (Jon Morrison) and the latest addition to the team, pathologist Dr Anthony Carmichael (Christopher Colquhoun). In the process, she will unearth a web of secrets, rivalries and years of buried resentment that will lead her to the killer.

Sunday, 3 March, 8:40pm on ABC.

8 Responses

  1. I don’t care if they are repeats or whatever…I will watch Vera, anytime…. Love it..and I also do not mind that it is not hot off the press…happy to wait.

  2. Gah! Don’t you hate it when you read an episode description, recognise it, know you’ve seen it, but you can’t remember if it was here or abroad.

    1. Edit: Just realised I’m confusing Vera with Shetland, owing to a common guest star [and a common progenitor]. But I have seen the episode above and didn’t finish the season. Carry on.

  3. David, are you sure these are new episodes?

    S07E01 “Natural Selection” was broadcast on Mar 19, 2017 (ITV1). Normally, if such shows goes to Pay TV first in Australia (13th Street?) then the ABC is 12 months behind, so I would have thought that a “new” episode of Vera to the ABC would be S08E01. Perhaps I’m wrong and the ABC are in fact 3 seasons behind.

    According to your post: https://tvtonight.com.au/2018/10/abc-nabs-new-vera-series.html, from October 2018 the ABC has first broadcast rights to season 9 of Vera.

    Maybe the ABC will broadcast all 12 episodes in a row …

      1. Fair enough. I found your posts regarding S7 on 13th Street back in 2017 and asking Professor Google it appears that S8 has not been broadcast on any pay TV channels here in Oz … several posts on the Foxtel forums for example asking when S8 was going to be broadcast … not to mention S9.

        Lets hope that for those Vera fans that the ABC catches up promptly this year.

    2. The ABC has been buying Vera after 13th Street’s exclusive window is over, and screening them during ratings season. They aren’t going to so S8 & 9 before their air S7. When they bought Endeavour off Seven they showed several season in one block and caught up. Since they have bought the first run rights, it would be strange if they didn’t.

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