Why "Dept. Q" is the crime drama of the moment

Dept. Q , Netflix's new crime series, is a study in internationalism. Written and mostly directed by American Scott Frank , it is based on a novel by Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen and set and filmed in Scotland with a British cast led by Matthew Goode.

This might be notable given the current transatlantic atmosphere, but of course, the series has been years in the making. And if anyone is going to remain committed to peaceful relations between multiple markets, it's Netflix.

The ambitious nine-episode season also reflects the career of Frank, a talented writer-director who has had his highs ( A Dangerous Affair , The Queen's Gambit ) and his lows ( Monsieur Spade ). He likes to move between genres, with a base in American literary crime ( A Dangerous Affair , Hoke , A Walk Among the Tombs ), although he also dabbles in westerns ( Godless ), science fiction ( Prior Sentencing ), period melodrama ( The Queen's Gambit ) and others.

In Dept. Q , where Goode plays a traumatized Edinburgh detective tasked with setting up a new cold-case unit, Frank (who created the series with British writer Chandni Lakhani) gets to mix and match everything in one place. The Nordic noir influence on traditional British mystery has been around for decades, but Frank adds an American twist.

The police duo of Carl Morck, played by Goode, and Akram Salim, played by Alexej Manvelov, a Syrian immigrant with a disturbing knack for extracting confessions, is probably better drawn than it otherwise would be; the interplay between Goode and Manvelov is one of the show's main draws. And, as is often the case with Frank's productions, Dept. Q has an overall flow and fluidity, a style that, while not always seductive, is nonetheless appealing.

(A 2013 Danish film based on the same source, The Keeper of Lost Causes , is grim by comparison, though some may prefer its 96-minute running time to the series' seven and a half hours.)

On the other hand, a British or Danish series wouldn't be as dialogue-heavy as Dept. Q , which was completely adapted for comedy format. The terse, or not-so-terse, dialogue—between Morck and Salim; Morck and his therapist (Kelly Macdonald, as acerbic and charming as ever); Morck and his paraplegic former partner (the always touching Jamie Sives); Morck and a young female agent he reluctantly joins his team (Leah Byrne)—overwhelms the action and overshadows the investigation. (The few moments where the characters' character is revealed through the action, particularly Salim's ambivalence about his own harsh methods, are like water in a desert of exposition.)

This wouldn't be a big issue if the dialogue had more bite, but perhaps the change of location, with its attendant shifts in language and culture, posed a problem for Frank, as much of the conversation is stilted and flat. The stellar cast performs valiantly, but, aside from Macdonald and Sives, they fail to consistently humanize him or inject humor.

The influences run both ways, of course, and whatever Frank brings to Dept. Q , the Nordic roots of crime fiction are the show's dominant characteristic. The genre's hallmark drawing-room sadism—exaggerated monstrosity normalized by the cool restraint with which it's presented—is baroquely displayed in the way a hostage is held captive, a major visual motif in the case that unfolds throughout the season. The case's complications and the extreme leaps of plot and psychological connection that lead to its solution—which for some viewers will be a turn-off from the outset—are a joint heritage of Nordic and British mystery.

And the structural glue of the series—to call it a theme would be an exaggeration—is trauma, with a secondary layer of guilt. Morck carries the weight of a catastrophic incident at work, depicted in a truly shocking opening scene; his therapy sessions are mandatory. One team member joins meetings via videoconference from his hospital bed. Another suffered a nervous breakdown after a civilian was accidentally killed. Salim, who may or may not have been a professional torturer, is well-adjusted by comparison.

All of this weighs on Goode, whose usual elegant beauty and sexual magnetism are discarded here. Morck is oblivious to social norms and, we're constantly told, a hopeless jerk. This is disconcerting for the viewer, because even behind his shaggy hair and unkempt beard, and with his expressiveness and charisma in check, Goode is incapable of being, or unwilling to be, genuinely hateful.

Morck has a heart of gold, of course. But the series makes us wait the full nine episodes for any emotional release, and the effect is that Goode's performance, while competent, comes off as a bit dull. It's fine, but Dept. Q might have been more interesting with someone genuinely scruffier in the role.