Dept. Q Review: Is the new Netflix crime drama set in Edinburgh worth watching?
There’s a new crimefighter on the streets of Auld Reekie in a hotly-anticipated new Netflix series - and we’ve seen the first two episodes.
Edinburgh must have a decent claim to the title of the British televisual murder capital - with corpses cropping up at an alarming rate in a string of small screen adaptations, including Ian Rankin's Rebus, Kate Atkinson's Case Studies and Irvine Welsh’s Crime.
Now the body count is set to rise again, thanks to new nine-part Netflix crime drama Dept. Q. It offers a fresh take on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s acclaimed series of novels, already turned into a Danish film franchise, with the action transposed from Copenhagen to the streets of Scotland’s Capital. It’s not a tough leap to make given the shared ground covered by the Scandi Noir and Tartan Noir writing genres.
Our new rogue policeman-with-issues (is there any other kind?) is DCI Carl Morcjk, played by Matthew Goode. Goode is one of those actors you instantly recognise but struggle to remember exactly where from. The answer, depending on age and taste, is likely to either be prestige dramas The Crown and Downtown Abbey or superhero film Watchmen. He plays Morcjk with sweary, exasperated abandon; perpetually looking like he’s just rolled out of bed after about 20 minutes sleep to deliver withering putdowns to Millenial underlings.
The first episode, as is often the case with such series, is as overstuffed as an Edinburgh morgue. The huge number of characters requiring introduction and scene-setting marks to hit mean your full attention is demanded. Play with your phone for a couple of minutes and expect to be all at sea. Put simply, the premise is that DCI Morcjk is a brilliant but near-universally loathed detective who is put in charge of a new cold case unit after a traumantic incident at a crime scene leaves his partner paralysed and another officer dead. Morcjk himself barely escapes with his life, adding another layer to his previous misanthropic view of life. As he says to his psychologist (played by Kelly Macdonald, effortlessly elevating every scene she’s in): “I had problems with human beings long before I got shot in the face”. Meanwhile, we also meet a maverick prosecutor, played by Chloe Pirrie (Shell, An Inspector Calls), whose troubled professional and personal life appears to be putting her on a collision course with DCI Morcjk.
The titular Dept. Q is the dusty basement office/toilet he’s banished to by a budget-hungry boss (a magnificently mercenary Kate Dickie), complete with a stack of unsolved case files and a mysterious Syrian assistant called Akram whom, you suspect, contains multitudes. So far, so Slow Horses, and it’s hard to not compare it with the award-winning Apple TV+ series. Gary Oldman’s filthy (in every sense of the word) Jackson Lamb makes DCI Morcjk look like Hercule Poirot when it comes to language and personal hygiene.
What marks Dept. Q out is the excellent, largely Scottish, cast - with every actor from north of the border seemingly making an appearance. Indeed, if this one runs (and there are 10 books so far), it could fill part of the Scottish thespian employment gap left by the soon-to-end River City. Along with Kate Dickie and Kelly McDonald, there are big-hitters like Mark Bonnar and Shirley Henderson, alongside up-and-comers including Leah Byrne and at least two members of the Still Game gang. Of course Edinburgh itself has a starring role too, and it’s fun to pick off the locations used, from the High Court to the number 34 bus heading to Leith.
It’s a tricksy and intricate opening episode which pleasingly pulls the rug from under your feet with a wicked twist. The second instalment ventures further into Morcjk’s first investigation, adding depth to the main protagonists and allowing subsidiary characters more room to breathe (Henderson in particular shines) - while a cliffhanger means that it’d be a crime not to click the ‘next episode’ button.
Dept. Q is available on Netflix from Thursday, May 29.
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