Vera season 13 has been a long time coming for devoted fans who’ve been eagerly waiting for DCI Vera Stanhope’s return – and ITV have been airing season 12 again ahead of the new series’ premiere.
Winter evenings just wouldn’t be the same without DCI Vera Stanhope and 2024 isn’t going to disappoint us as the new series of Vera is about to premiere on ITV. In anticipation of Vera season 13, many Vera fans might have been tuning into ITV3 to see Brenda Blethyn’s performance as the detective in season 12 which is re-airing.
Inspired by Ann Cleeves’ bestselling Vera book series, the show is set in the North East of England and sees everyone’s favourite no-nonsense detective solving some devastating crimes. Vera season 13 is set to bring about a major change for Vera and fans might be wondering when they can expect to see her back on their screens again.
What is the Vera season 13 release date?
Anyone who’s been excitedly waiting for the new series of Vera to start since season 12’s finale aired in February 2023 only has a few more days to go as the Vera season 13 release date is Sunday, 7th January. Sadly, unlike many of the previous series, Vera season 13 is only three episodes long and not the more frequently-seen four. This means that the finale of the new series of Vera will air on Sunday, 21st January but whilst it might be a relatively short series, it promises to be one to remember, especially in light of a big change to the cast.
How to watch Vera season 13
With the Vera season 13 release date drawing closer if you don’t want to miss a moment of the upcoming episodes then the place to head is ITV1 if you’re a UK-based viewer. The new series of Vera will air on Sundays from 8pm-10pm and each episode will also be made available to stream on ITVX after broadcast.
If you’re looking to re-watch your favourite episodes ahead of Vera season 13 or perhaps you haven’t yet dived into the crime drama then you can also watch every episode of the show from the very beginning via ITVX. Episodes from older seasons also often air on ITV1 and ITV3 over weekends and in the evenings, like the season 12 episode, Blue, on 4th January on ITV3.
For US fans Vera seasons 1-12 can be watched via Amazon Prime Video with a BritBox subscription added to your package or via a standalone BritBox subscription. BritBox offers a 7-day free trial and after that it costs $8.99 per month or $89.99 a year. Vera season 13 is expected to land on BritBox too with no date confirmed yet.
How to watch Vera season 13 from anywhere
If you’re a citizen of the UK on vacation or working overseas, you can still watch Vera season 13 just as you would at home when it starts on 7th January. All you need is a VPN, a piece of software which allows you to change your IP address to make it look like you’re accessing streaming services from any country in the world.
Our sister site, TechRadar, has tested all of the major VPN services and they rate ExpressVPN as the absolute best. They say, “It’s compatible with all of your devices, supports most streaming services, and ranks among the fastest. You can even install it on devices like an Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Xbox, and PlayStation. So for a one-stop-shop, you can’t go wrong with Express.”
Why did Kenny Doughty leave Vera?
We might not know the specifics of the storylines that are set to unfold in Vera season 13 but there is one thing we know for sure about the new series – that it won’t include DS Aidan Healy. It was announced earlier this year that actor Kenny Doughty is leaving Vera, meaning his character – who was introduced in season 5 – is no longer going to be part of DCI Vera Stanhope’s team.
Reflecting on his decision to leave the show Kenny explained earlier this year, as per RadioTimes.com, that he felt the time had come to move on to other projects after nine wonderful years on Vera.
“I made the decision before we started filming series 12. That was initially going to be the four films screened at the start of 2023,” he explained. “But then halfway through filming they said, ‘Can we do a Christmas special as well?’ So it was a long goodbye, with The Rising Tide being my last episode, filmed in November and December 2022.”
Kenny went on to add that there was not one, but “lots of personal and professional reasons” why he “wanted to move on”. Although he expressed how much he “loved doing Vera” and how “life-changing” it was, the actor also declared that wanted to leave “while [he] was still happy with everything”.
“[A] little part of me, for whatever reason, the little inner self said to me, ‘You should probably call it a day while you’re still enjoying it’. To step away and seek new acting challenges,” he said.
Aidan Healy’s last appeared in the Vera season 12 festive special episode, The Rising Tide, and this ended joyfully with no suggestion that Aidan had resigned or had plans to leave the North East. Given this was Kenny Doughty’s final episode of Vera, it seems that Aidan will leave off-screen like his predecessor DS Joe Ashworth did.
With that in mind, fans will no doubt be interested in how Vera season 13’s opening episode will establish Aidan’s absence and the reason for him going. We also know that Joe Ashworth will be back in the new series of Vera so whilst many fans will likely be sad at the prospect of no Aiden, the return of a popular character could be some comfort.
How many seasons of Vera are there?
Currently 12 seasons of Vera have aired so far, including a special seventh episode of season 12 that was broadcast on 26th December 2023. This directly adapted the most recent Ann Cleeves Vera novel – The Rising Tide – making it the tenth episode of ITV’s Vera that has been specifically adapted from the book series. Vera star Brenda Blethyn has previously praised the “well-defined characters” that the bestselling author has created, adding that it was this which has allowed “other story writers to bring them to life on screen as well”.