The early series were quite good, apart from some awful north east accents, Vera's amongst them. We live in the north east so to be honest watched it more for the locations than anything else. It's often amusing to see them driving across the Tyne Bridge one minute and then the High Level the next.
The series started to go downhill when the excellent David Leon (Sgt Joe Ashworth) a good actor and a real Geordie left to be replaced by. Kenny Doughty who is pretty wooden in comparison.
The supporting cast of detectives never seem to add much to the plot other than to carry out Vera's often screechy orders and I find it hard to believe that in such a small team they would all always call her maam even in the close quarters of their office.
What is particularly amusing is to see how, as the series progress more and more ethnic minorities are shoehorned in. In later series whenever they are going to see 'the bloke who runs the youth club' or 'the owner of xyz business or some random witness they are almost always black or asian despite (with the exception of the west end of Newcastle), Tyneside and particularly Northumberland having probably the lowest percentage of non white residents in the country.
It's interesting too that while the programme makers are keen to have as many minority actors as possible, they are far less keen on having genuine Geordie and Northumbrian (and no, they are not the same) actors.
The plots are pretty pedestrian and despite the long run, character development is threadbare and we know pretty much nothing about them as people. In particular the character of Kenny, the eldest and longest serving member of the team is one that could have been made much more of than just the occasional 'yes maam' that he is reduced to. Oh, and Vera's habit of calling everyone Luv is definitely not normal Geordie vernacular.
Time to retire Vera pet.
The series started to go downhill when the excellent David Leon (Sgt Joe Ashworth) a good actor and a real Geordie left to be replaced by. Kenny Doughty who is pretty wooden in comparison.
The supporting cast of detectives never seem to add much to the plot other than to carry out Vera's often screechy orders and I find it hard to believe that in such a small team they would all always call her maam even in the close quarters of their office.
What is particularly amusing is to see how, as the series progress more and more ethnic minorities are shoehorned in. In later series whenever they are going to see 'the bloke who runs the youth club' or 'the owner of xyz business or some random witness they are almost always black or asian despite (with the exception of the west end of Newcastle), Tyneside and particularly Northumberland having probably the lowest percentage of non white residents in the country.
It's interesting too that while the programme makers are keen to have as many minority actors as possible, they are far less keen on having genuine Geordie and Northumbrian (and no, they are not the same) actors.
The plots are pretty pedestrian and despite the long run, character development is threadbare and we know pretty much nothing about them as people. In particular the character of Kenny, the eldest and longest serving member of the team is one that could have been made much more of than just the occasional 'yes maam' that he is reduced to. Oh, and Vera's habit of calling everyone Luv is definitely not normal Geordie vernacular.
Time to retire Vera pet.