Vera 'replacement' Ellis' creator reveals 'problem' with rival shows as new series debuts

Ellis' lead writer, Sian Ejiwunmi-Lee Berre, has shed light on what sets the Channel 5 drama apart from other detective shows.

The series features Sharon D Clarke as DCI Ellis, who travels to different towns to assist with their struggling investigations. Her first assignment is to find a missing person named Maggie, following the murder of Rowan, the last person seen with her.

Ejiwunmi-Lee Berre highlighted why she believes Ellis distinguishes itself from other series such as Death In Paradise, Midsomer Murders, and Inspector Morse.

She remarked: "A lot of big detective shows are very site-specific. Whether it's Death in Paradise, Midsomer Murders, or even Inspector Morse, it's about the place. This is about her.

"And she brings her very specific understanding of how people work to wherever she goes; her mantra is that everything is made different by love, fear, hate, or anger, and she digs into the character of a town. So, the changing character in each episode is the town and obviously the people in it but the town itself has a particular flaw."

Ejiwunmi-Lee Berre also pointed out: "Most police dramas operate around the station where they have their colleagues and their routines, whatever they are, but they have their community. For Ellis and Harper, it's just them. And they work with the police station, but they're always working with different people."

Sharon opened up about her reasons for joining the show, highlighting her desire to make an impact and set a precedent.

"I've never seen a Black, dark-skinned female woman in a title role in a cop show, ever. And that alone is the biggest draw for me before anything had gone in the script," she remarked.

"If someone has this vision and someone wants to put that out there to the nation ... I always think that, when we do what we do in our industry as actors, we should be entertaining, we should elevate, we should inspire, we should educate and we should spark debate, start some kind of conversation."

She added: "Something like Ellis is going to do that because it's not been seen before and so that was the draw for me, completely and utterly before I'd even seen any scripts."

*Ellis airs on Channel 5 and My5.