‘Line of Duty was on my mind when creating Netflix’s latest thriller’

Writer and director Scott Frank has said he ‘loves’ Line of Duty (Picture: BBC/World Productions)

Netflix has a new mystery waiting to unfurl on your screens today, which will be perfect for those hankering after a slice of Line of Duty.

Scott Frank, the writer and director behind Netflix’s runaway chess hit The Queen’s Gambit (an unlikely combination of words), is back on the streamer with the twisty crime thriller Dept Q.

The new nine-part show dives in at the deep end with a shooting in the first scene that leaves one copper dead, our protagonist detective Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) traumatised and his partner paralysed.

Speaking to Metro, Frank explained how certain British TV thrillers played a huge part in his inspiration for the show, which has dropped all nine of its episodes to binge in one go today.

Following the events of the opening scene, Morck is still adjusting to his new normal months later, when his superior exiles him to a newly established department – the name’s in the title – down in the basement.

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He’s joined by a couple of fellow police misfits and tasked with cracking a long-unsolved cold case.

Scott Frank wrote Netflix’s smash hit The Queen’s Gambit (Picture: AP)

He only has one small plea to TV viewers: don’t watch the show on your phone. 

‘I don’t know how they do it,’ he said. ‘I feel terrible for the filmmakers, because they’re watching Outlander on their cell phone. 

‘Even my own wife sometimes will be watching, and she’ll look down to do something, and then she’ll look up and she’ll have missed a key plot point.

‘I don’t know how to control that. I only know how to write a good story and then just hope that enough people realise that it’s one they should probably lean in for.’

And if he does happen to see you watching Dept Q on the tube? ‘I would be both mortified and resigned at the same time,’ he laughs.

Frank hopes Dept Q will be a ‘full meal’ for viewers (Picture: Jamie Simpson/Netflix)

Matthew Goode, 47, told Metro he didn’t think Frank would choose him for the role of Morck, but Frank said he wrote the scripts with Goode specifically in mind.

Goode said: ‘I was thinking he can pretty have whoever he wants. Why question him? He’s one of the most intelligent men around. So he came back and he said, ‘I think I’d really like you to do it’.

‘It’s just such brilliant, nuanced characters. It’s dark, it’s hilarious. And that’s something you don’t necessarily always see within this genre. I just wanted more scripts. I wanted to know where it was going.

‘So I felt very, very, very lucky and delighted, because it’s the second time that Scott has given me a role that I don’t think many other directors would necessarily have thought of me for.’

Dept Q is available to stream on Netflix. 

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