Vera

I think the new series of Vera finished last evening which is a good as reason as any to say that I've enjoyed it. I wasn't sure when it was first aired, and I know a lot of people moa about the accents, but really if that's the best you can find to moan about in a detective drama then they're doing something right. (Although I do think someone should have told Brenda Blethyn that no-one in the North East would pronounce her name Stan-Hope. It's  Stannup. And I say that advisedly with a Geordie mother and the first twelve years of my life spent in County Durham)

One of the things that I like about Vera is that in it people kill for sad yet understandable reasons which makes it a lot more poignant than some other detective dramas which are really just about inflicting gory and gratuitous violence mainly on women. In Vera, it's not always a woman who is murdered, and even when it is, it isn't by some random and terrifyingly sadistic serial killer who appears from nowhere with a mission to carve up every female who crosses his path. It's all a lot more sensible and intelligent than that.