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Vera: Set 4

Score: 93%
Rating: Not Rated
Publisher: Acorn Media
Region: 1
Media: DVD/4
Running Time: 370 Mins.
Genre: Crime/Mystery/TV Series
Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: SDH English

Features:

  • Photo Gallery

ITV Studio and Acorn Media's Vera: Set Four once again brings an exemplary British crime series to television's foreground. Starring as Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope, talented two-time Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn heads up a team at Northumberland and City Police along with handsome David Leon (RocknRolla) playing her capable assistant, Detective Sergeant Joe Ashworth.

Vera: Set Four is based on the best selling stories of British author Ann Cleeves and set in the picturesque, but austere, unspoiled countryside, moorlands and peaceful valleys of northeast England's Northumberland landscape.

In this fourth series, the investigative duo search and uncover evidence and expose secrets in four brilliant crime episodes spanning locations from the Northumberland's National Park along Hadrian's Wall, a major heritage site with breathtaking landscapes, to Newcastle's Millennium Bridge, the amazing Sage building and other older Victorian buildings in the city. Locations manager Andrew Bainbridge also filmed the Blyth coast that offered an artistic, angular, metallic giant offshore perspective.

When interviewed by ITV, Blethyn admits that she loves the character Vera. She thinks Vera is very unassuming, her looks are typical and down-to-earth, she's not hampered by romance, and she doesn't come with any baggage. Some people think that Vera is lonely, but I think she's self-contained, confident, marches to her own drum, and has an analytical, contemplative, and probing mind. She is obsessive in her criminal work, and doesn't feel relief until the case is justly solved.

Her supporting cast consists of family-man D.S. Joe Ashworth, with wife Celine Ashworth (Sonya Cassidy), D.C. Kenny Lockhart (Jon Morrison), D.C. Rebecca Shepherd (Clare Calbraith), and pathologist Marcus Summer (Kingsley Ben-Adir replacing Billy Cartwright played by Paul Ritter).

The four episode movies in Vera: Set Four include Episode One: "On Harbour Street" where the stabbing death of a senior citizen on a crowded train is witnessed by D.S. Ashworth's young daughter. Episode 2: "Protected" finds a young man beaten to death along the seafront at a popular resort. Why wasn't the young man at his father's retirement party at the same time? Episode 3: "The Deer Hunters" finds two local poachers are the targets of gunshot and their truck is torched, while nearby a man is killed with a single round from a hunting rifle, and in Episode 4: "Death of a Family Man," a dead body is found in a local river. Was it suicide or murder? There is also a Photo Gallery of cast shots during the filming of the episodes.

Vera: Set Four is a serious crime series and each episode consists of many layers. The series focuses on the crime and not Vera's personal life. There is light comedy, but the overall environment and setting is somber, bleak, cold and realistic. Vera is referred to as messy, but her life is unorganized and messy because it just isn't her priority. She likes her booze every now and then, but generally when she's alone, that's her company. When asked if Blethyn shares any characteristics with Vera, she answered that her character is a fair person without vanity or ego, and she believes that she is as well. "However," she said, "we certainly don’t share the same wardrobe!" because the two are not alike at all in their choice of clothing.

Vera is motivated by a personal purpose to bring justice to a cruel world. But, even though the crimes are solved and the murderers apprehended, it does not necessarily resolve the problems created within the family by the incident itself. This is a crime show with possible disturbing scenes and parents are cautioned because the film is not rated. I, personally, like Vera: Set Four. She's reached a point in her life where she is doing what she believes she is called to do. Nothing else matters, but she is content with her life and takes each case as it comes.



-Kambur O. Blythe, GameVortex Communications
AKA Jan Daniel

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