DVD Review: ‘Vera Set 1-5 Collection’ & ‘Vera Set 6’

Now available on DVD, Vera: Sets 1 -5 Collection and Vera: Set 6 from Acorn Media are something of an oddity in the police procedural canon. While we’re all used to the eccentric and rumpled detective, the idea that a woman can be just as disheveled but brilliant is not a concept most are used to seeing on television.

Well, meet Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) of the Northumberland and City Police based in and around Newcastle on Tyne in Northern England. She lives alone in a run down farmhouse and drives an old fashioned Land Rover. Both used to belong to her late, and mostly unlamented father. In the series’s first episode, and when we first meet Stanhope, she’s dealing with the disposal of her dearly departed’s ashes.

Not your typical grieving daughter, she enlists the aid of her aide, Detective Sergeant (DS ) Joe Ashworth David Leon, for the job. This is our first indication Stanhope might not be either your typical police officer or have had what would call a normal upbringing. However untypical she may or may not be, we soon find out Stanhope is a brilliant police officer capable of combining an uncanny ability to reason with natural instincts in order to find solutions to the murder cases that show up on her desk.

It’s a good thing she’s good at her job, because her interpersonal skills aren’t what you’d call great. Abrasive and quick tempered she bullies and inspires her staff in about equal measure to get the job done. While not all those who work with her respond well to that form of motivation, she does manage to earn the respect and loyalty of those who work with her the longest and closest. The main reason being is they see no matter how much she demands of them, she demands even more of herself, and they end up not wanting to disappoint her.

Of course those joining her team have to go through a period of adjustment as we see in season 5 when her longtime sergeant Ashworth is promoted and replaced by DS Aiden Healy (Kenny Doughty) and Detective Constable (DC) Bethany Whelan (Cush Jumbo – most recently seen as Luca in the final season of The Good Wife) join the team. While the latter was with the team for one episode earlier, (in Season 4) watching them become acclimatized to the atmosphere created by DCI Stanhope is almost as much of an event as watching murders being solved.

Stanhope isn’t just some cranky and mean spirited task master. Nobody would work for her if that was the case. However, it takes an actor of the exceptional talents of Blethyn to bring this multidimensional character to life. Blethyn is one of those gifted with the ability to convey incredible depth of feeling with nothing more than a single glance or a look. Watching her as she copes not only with her personal issues, but the lives of the people touched by horrendous crimes, one can’t help but see her character’s emotional depth.

The compassion she shows for those who life spits upon is about equal to the scorn she can heap upon those whose selfishness causes others misery. Blethyn not only shows us both aspects of her character, but how it makes perfect sense for a police officer of her experience to feel this way. While the plots and shows are wonderfully done, with excellent supporting characters in every episode, watching Blethyn’s tour de force performance as DCI Stanhope is enough to keep anyone captivated through all six seasons.

Vera is one of those rare detective shows where what happens almost doesn’t matter as much as how the story unfolds. The acting is so superlative you can sit back and watch the same episode over and over again and not be bored. While neither the box set, Vera Set 1-5 Collection or the Vera Set 6 have much in the way of special features – text interviews and photo gallery in the former – the shows themselves are special enough to make these worth owning.