Skip to content
Dept Q opens with police answering the call to examine a murder scene, only to get a hell of a shock, the details of which I’ll leave for you to discover, but the trailer confirms that a situation developed which left DCI Carl Morck (Matthew Goode – Abigail) in deep shock, while his partner, James Hardy (Jamie Sives – Annika) is now in hospital, but partially paralysed.
This is contrasted with solicitor Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie – The Queen’s Gambit), who’s attempting to prosecute a man accused in court of killing his wife, whilst also dealing with some errant harassment emails because of her profession. She also has to juggle a turbulent home life with a brother, William (Tom Bulpett), who has some mental health issues going on, and her mother, Claire (Shirley Henderson – Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy), being very offbeat as Shirley Henderson often is.
It’s a weird police station in which Carl works, given that the building is dressed like the ’70s, but tech is modern. However, in a plot premise which seems rather a stretch, while Carl’s boss, Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie – Undergods) runs a department which hasn’t got enough staff, on a separate point, she’s tasked with head-hunting the right people to run a new dept, which looks at very cold cases, and with a “substantial budget”.
Of course, why don’t they just give that to the cops working regular cases? But then… premise.
With Carl not long having returned to work, following the events at the beginning of the opener, Moira wants him to head it up – namely, Dept Q – and he can have a point of contact, like a lawyer, hence, I was thinking is that where Merritt comes into it, given that she’s sick of her current role?
Well, whatever happens, someone who also wants a job in the building is Syrian chap, Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov – Occupied Season 1), although for anyone who’ll be working in this new department, it’s deep in the basement… No daylight? No thanks!
For the characters, Carl’s a bit of a cliché, being the typical grouchy anti-hero, who thinks it’s okay to get by in his career by swearing as if it wouldn’t matter, but when it comes to Dept Q‘s first case, it really threw me a curveball. However, it’s pretty engaging on the whole, even if it sometimes is a bit slow to get to its destination.
Additionally, while most of this is in a 16:9 ratio, before too long, this changes to 4:3 for somescenes, for reasons that will become apparent, but which I will not spoil, here.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Dept Q is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from today.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 60 minutes per episode (9 episodes)
Release date: May 29th 2025
Studio: Netflix
Format: 1.78:1; 1.33:1 (some scenes)
Director: Scott Frank
Producer: David Brown
Writers: Chandni Lakhani, Stephen Greenhorn, Colette Kane
Novel: Jussi Adler-Olsen
Music: Carlos Rafael Rivera
Cast:
DCI Carl Morck: Matthew Goode
Merritt Lingard: Chloe Pirrie
Moira Jacobson: Kate Dickie
Akram Salim: Alexej Manvelov
James Hardy: Jamie Sives
DC Rose Dickson: Leah Byrne
Dr. Rachel Irving: Kelly Macdonald
DCI Logan Bruce: Kal Sabir
DC Clark: Aron Dochard
DC Wilson: Catriona Stirling
Stephen Burns: Mark Bonnar
Jonathan Barnes: Brian Ferguson
Claire Marsh: Shirley Henderson
William Lingard: Tom Bulpett
Donna Hardy: Samara Maclaren
Duncan Finney: Mark Cox
Sam Haig: Steven Miller
PC Anderson: Angus Yellowlees
Liam Taylor: Patrick Kennedy
Graham Finch: Douglas Russell
Press: Paul Ellard
Dennis Piper: James Macnaughton
Child Merritt Lingard: Coseama Cook
Teenage Merritt Lingard: Bobby Rainsbury
Teenage William Lingard: Paddy Towers
Paul Evans: Alec Newman
Chloe Evans: Kim Allan
Charlie Bell: Nolan Willis
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.