# Review of Dept Q, Series 1 **See Also:** [[TV Reviews]]. [Dept Q](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dept._Q) is an engaging and quirky British crime thriller series based on the book series by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen. It's difficult to describe the plot without giving things away because events are shown out of order - sort of. Since figuring out not only *what* happened but also *when* it happened is half the fun of this show, I won't even try. I'll say this: star Edinburgh detective Carl Morck is emotionally scarred but trying to soldier on. His boss tries to cover for him as best she can. Morck ends up taking a new post running a new department specializing in cold cases. Though Morck really doesn't care for it, he eventually latches on to one particular case. Morck... *accretes* (seriously, that's the best word to describe it) two other members of the force to help him: Rose Dickson, a young officer who is having difficulties recovering from a breakdown, and Akram Salim, a civilian IT specialist for the force with a mysterious past and several hidden talents particularly useful in policing. Together, they unravel the mystery of the cold case while growing into a proper team. At home, Morck lives with his troubled stepson Jasper and a lodger, Sanjeev, who is a nerdy, quasi-hippie academic. So far, it sounds rather mundane. And it is. However, the characters are all so well-rounded, and the plot is realistic and just contorted enough that I didn't even notice its formulaic aspects. What really makes Dept Q work, for me, are the characters. They're all of them rich, and odd, and more than a little bit likeable (except for the villains, which I'll get to later). The neat part is that they *grow* on you. For instance, Morck seems a complete asshole at first - and he is, when he wants to be, which is often. But as you learn more about him, you start to understand him and see his behaviours as natural reactions to his experiences. You see the good in him, but only barely because of the physical and psychological scars layered on top. Once he sinks his teeth into the cold case, he starts to see the good he can do. You watch him rediscover himself, and slowly face the embarrassing consequences of his past behaviours. You see the strength that lay hidden come out, and it's quite gratifying. Not that he becomes a Hallmark posterboy - not by a long shot. But he does become the kind of person you'd like to have as a neighbour and share the odd pint with. The same can be said for almost all the characters; the more you learn about them, the more you come to understand that they're basically decent folk hard-done by society and life-in-general. I think the only real flaw was in the villains. I refuse to give much away here, so I'll just say this: I didn't quite believe they were as bad as they were because we didn't get enough backstory; we didn't get as much of their lives as we did the protagonists'. Perhaps those story elements had to be dropped for the sake of running time; I don't know. (Though I do intend to read the original book - it's next on my list.) In any case, I really enjoyed Dept Q, I really hope there'll be more series, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys British police procedurals.