'Vera' to Conclude After Season 14

Broadcaster ITV confirmed that fan favorite Vera is stepping down from the police force. In a surprise Earth Day announcement, the U.K. broadcaster said the series would conclude with Season 14, which has currently started filming and it expected to continue into the summer of 2024. Rumors had been swirling that Brenda Blethlyn, who plays the series titular sleuth, was looking to retire from the series. With only two episodes slated for Season 14, many fans assumed this was a compromise to keep the show going. However, it looks like that compromise will only be a temporary one to get the show to make it to 2025, after which it will conclude.

ITV had good reason to keep the show on the air for as long as possible. Though Vera was not picked up by PBS for national distribution when it first debuted and only aired on local American public television stations here and there before it was scooped up and put behind Acorn TV's streaming paywall around Season 6 in 2015, the show has been top-rated on both sides of the pond. 

Vera Season 13, for example, brought in 4.7 million viewers in the U.K. when it debuted on linear in January 2024, which in the streaming era is a massive number for any broadcast show to be able to garner, especially when it's been on the air for over a decade. In the U.S., the show currently streams new episodes exclusively on BritBox, which treats it like a flagship series. The show also landed its first festive special in December 2023, one of the most-watched programs from the holiday period.

The series made Brenda Blethlyn a household name, and her statement in hanging up Vera's rainhat reflected how much the series has changed her life.

“Working on Vera has been a joy from beginning to end and I’m sad to be saying Cheerio. I’ll be forever grateful to the wonderful Ann Cleeves, who created Vera, and to Elaine Collins, who saw fit to cast me in the role. The Producers, dream cast and crew have been fabulous and I’m going to miss them, but I won’t forget their huge talent, the camaraderie, laughter or kindness we shared nor the friendship of the people of the north east and our fans worldwide. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” 

While fans will be going into mourning, the series still has a couple more installments to add to the 54 feature-length episodes it has produced over the last 13 years. Filming has begun on the final season, with Blethlyn returning for the final two adventures, of course, alongside David Leon as DI Joe Ashworth, Jon Morrison as DC Kenny Lockhart, Riley Jones as DC Mark Edwards, Sarah Kameela as Dr. Paula Bennett, and Rhiannon Clements as DC Stephanie Duncan.

Will Nicolson will be returning to produce the series' final two episodes in association with ITV Studios. Though writers and directors have not been announced (nor have guest stars), one assumes author Ann Cleeves and series creator Paul Matthew Thompson will pen at least one, if not both, of the final episodes, with longtime director Paul Gay helming. More information will come when filming continues over the coming weeks.

Vera Seasons 1-13, plus the festive special, are all streaming on BritBox here in the U.S. Vera Season 14, the final season, is expected to arrive in early 2025.