It was dubbed by fans as the "clash of the drama titans" as the Happy Valley finale on BBC One went head-to-head with Vera on ITV1 on Sunday night (February 5). As DCI Vera Stanhope, played by Brenda Blethyn, cracked another difficult case in the North East, Yorkshire crime fighter Sergeant Catherine Cawood, played by Sarah Lancashire, was having the ultimate retirement day.
In Vera, which launched in 2011 and is now in its 12th series, Vera attended to the body of soldier Conn Burns who had ended up living on the streets after leaving the Army, finding that secrets from his past and betrayal in the present made for a deadly future. Victoria Ekanoye, who played Angie Appleton the wife of conman Jude Appleton in Coronation Street, was back on our screens in Vera as Liv Masters, the head of a security firm the new partner of Conn's wife Kate.
There was a shock in store for viewers, including Victoria's nearest and dearest, as her supportive character turned out to be a ruthless killer who had strangled Conn with his own scarf after she found him after he had been attacked near the nightclub where she was working. It was a far cry from her soap role as doting mum Angie from 2017 to 2019.
