Tartan noir whodunnit Dept. Q is the best thing I've watched so far this year
What we're watching: If you grew up on a diet of Taggart and Cracker, or have a taste for Scandi thrillers, this Scottish-set series will be right up your alley.
DCI Carl Morck is angry. He's angry at his stand-in psychologist, he's angry at his teenage step-son Jasper and he's angry at his perennial student lodger Martin.
Most of all, Morck is angry at himself, after surviving a shooting in which a young colleague dies and his best mate is paralysed. What makes him even more furious is getting assigned to work on a stack of long-dead cold cases with a motley crew of colleagues.
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On paper, Dept. Q conforms to all the standard tropes of police procedural TV. Maverick copper who delights in breaking the rules and who has issues with authority? Tick. A bunch of troubled workmates? Tick. A really puzzling case that will have you running your own investigation from the sofa? Tick.
However, a finely tuned mix of sharp writing and great performances lifts this series into the realm of truly great crime drama. Matthew Goode is brilliant as Morck, a man so filled with rage that he even parks his car violently. There's not a dud character among the rest of the cast either - from lawyer Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie) and menacing Lord Advocate Stephen Burns (Mark Bonnar) to Morck's unassuming 'assistant' Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov ) who has a nifty trick with pressure points.
Alexej Manvelov as Akram Salim in Netflix series Dept. Q.
Netflix
Dept. Q is based on a series of Danish crime novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen (there have been previous film and TV versions) but this Netflix adaptation is set in beautifully grim and brooding Edinburgh and on the nearby island of Mhor. There are brief moments of hilarity but mostly it's a haunting, edge-of-the-sofa watch.
Don't watch it if... small subterranean spaces freak you out.
If you like Dept. Q, what should you watch next?
The Day of the Jackal: Eddie Redmayne stars as an elusive assassin evading the best efforts of MI5 (TVNZ+)
The Killing (Forbrydelsen): Danish detective Sarah Lund (wearing a distinctive Faroe Islands chunky hand-knitted jumper) investigates the murder of a Copenhagen teenager. (TVNZ+)
Mare of Easttown: Kate Winslet is brilliant as detective Mare Sheehan, a small-town cop whose murder investigation must include friends and family. (Neon)
