- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: May 29, 2025
Critic Reviews
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“Broken people healing themselves by providing closure for crime victims” can be an especially effective subgenre if the writing, directing, and casting align — and in Dept. Q, everything gels beautifully.
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Undeniably a great detective series and is just as sharp and engrossing as “Slow Horses.
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Carl, played by Matthew Goode, is not an easy man to like, let alone love. Yet the show built around him — Dept. Q, a new Netflix series adapted from the Danish noir novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen — turns out to be startlingly likable, and also sad, and funny, and scary, and thrilling.
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“Dept. Q” is deeply intense and complex. Its twists and turns don’t always pay off, but overall, the series is a riveting watch.
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Dept. Q, which Frank co-created with Chandni Lakhani, boasts a terrific lead performance from Goode, introduces a memorable ensemble cast and even unfurls a compelling mystery, albeit one that probably could have been told with a little more efficiency.
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The beauty is that even with all the excess, Dept Q never feels complicated. It’s confident in its simplicity, assuredly propelling you towards a heart-thumping finale. Watching it is rarely hard work.
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Dept. Q makes the mystery’s web of lies feel like a window into a larger, well-built world. That quality, coupled with some thoroughly lived-in performances, helps the show stand out in a crowded field.
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It is all fantastically well, and rigorously, done. The pacing has a leisurely confidence that some may find a touch slow, but allows for a character-first approach, creating a richness that amply rewards initial patience.
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Dept. Q is very well done. Goode, more often seen as a buttoned-up toff (in Downton Abbey and The Crown), plays wonderfully well against type as an unbuttoned scruff. His team of misfits are well cast and well-used.
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Dept Q may sound generic, being made by Netflix — or specifically Left Bank, who made royalty sexy with The Crown — but it’s slicker, more expensively done, more visually arresting than your average (even as its stretched over a couple of episodes too many).
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Dept. Q spends a lot of its first episode in misdirection mode, but by the end it has set up an intriguing case that’s being followed by an interesting-to-watch group of cops.
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Dept. Q expands beyond typical crime fare in much the same way The Queen’s Gambit transcended its ostensible subjects: chess, midcentury fashion, female empowerment. The first season does lack the latter show’s depth. But what it accomplishes should be enough to make it very popular.
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(It doesn’t hook you in like that stylish 2020 miniseries [The Queen’s Gambit], nor make you want to bask in its environment like that handsome, South-of-France-set neo-noir from last year [Monsieur Spade].) But it does have the bones for a longer run than those shows—and a crew with strong enough buddy-cop dynamics to warrant another case.
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The story is pulpy in ways that are sometimes unexpectedly dull, but I appreciate that one ongoing theme concerns the idea that police work is often corrupt. .... That basement office where Dept. Q is headquartered may be dank, but it’s atmospheric and cozy in its own way. Ultimately, the combination of Carl, Akram, Rose and Hardy makes for a compelling crime-solving foursome.
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