Vera belongs to the line Prime Suspect opened: a middle-aged woman running a murder squad, whose authority comes from competence rather than from rank or charm, in a northern English setting filmed as a real place rather than as scenery. The variation is temperament. Tennison's career is a running fight; Vera Stanhope is already established and uses being underestimated as a method. The debt is that the character exists as a commissionable lead at all, which was not true of British television drama before 1991.