Yesterday and today Jane and I caught up with the last two episodes of ITV’s series Vera. That is “last two” as in the end of the show as well as in “the most recent two”. That’s probably not a bad thing. Fourteen series is a good run and, although I haven’t seen all of them, they seem to have kept to a high standard including the ones that weren’t directly based on the original Ann Cleeves novels. I can think of quite a few shows that would have been better off with a deliberate ending rather than either petering out or taking various run ups to try and jump the shark.

Will it actually be the end? I think the lead actress, Brenda Blethyn, is pretty set on retiring from the role. It isn’t inconceivable that someone will attempt a reboot with a different lead as the stories are good and there is more than could be wrung from the books but that probably won’t be for a while yet. Other possibilities are either a follow-up with one of the supporting characters taking the main role or some kind of prequel series. Both of those happened with Inspector Morse, with Lewis (actor Kevin Whately had a small part in Vera 14:1) and Endeavour. Perhaps we’ll see Ashworth (her main DS) promoted into the role and there is a ream of blank pages and very partial sketches which could inform some kind of prequel where Vera is still a brilliant investigator but not yet the boss.

We don’t need those things though and, this year, I’ll probably get round to digging back into some of the episodes I haven’t seen or haven’t watched for a long while and perhaps even manage to track down the last couple of novels I need to complete the reading series.