Picture: Netflix
It’s now been a month since Dept. Q, the British crime series created by the same team behind The Queen’s Gambit and Godless, debuted on our screens. How well is the show performing and, most importantly, will it get a second season? Here’s our look at the numbers four weeks into its run in the top 10 and whether we think it’s currently likely to come back or quietly face the axe.
In case you missed it, Dept. Q (also referred to as Department Q, according to Google Trends, the former is the term most people use) is the new Netflix UK series starring Matthew Goode. It’s based on a popular book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen that was previously adapted into a successful Danish film franchise, but now given a distinct British (Scottish) voice.
How well is Dept. Q performing on Netflix? Will Netflix renew?
Expecting Renewal
When it comes to Netflix renewals, performance in the top 10s and viewership, as indicated by the weekly top 10 lists from Netflix itself, are the biggest key indicators of whether a show gets renewed or canceled.
Its launch was rather lukewarm in its first week, with just 6 million CVEs in its first four days, placing it on the lower end of Netflix’s recent UK series debuts. We were hopeful that strong reviews and positive word-of-mouth would help it gain momentum in the coming weeks, and that appears to have happened. In week 2, the series increased by 49% in viewing hours, reaching 73.40 million, equivalent to 8.9 million views. It’s now spent four weeks in the top 10s picking up 186M hours watched and 22.6M views.
| Week in Top 10 | Week Period | Hours Viewed | Views / CVE | Weekly Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | May 25th, 2025 to June 1st, 2025 | 49,300,000 (New) | 6,000,000 | 3 |
| 2 | June 1st, 2025 to June 8th, 2025 | 73,400,000 (+49%) | 8,900,000 | 2 |
| 3 | June 8th, 2025 to June 15th, 2025 | 35,200,000 (-52%) | 4,300,000 | 4 |
| 4 | June 15th, 2025 to June 22nd, 2025 | 28,100,000 (-20%) | 3,400,000 | 4 |
Let’s stack up its two-week performance against other Netflix Originals from the UK, noting that a few like The Gentlemen, Supacell, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, and Geek Girl all secured renewals, while Bodkin and KAOS did not.
Zooming out a little more to its four-week stats, you can see the show is by no means as big as Supacell or The Gentlemen, so on viewing numbers alone, it’s not the most confident renewal going right now.
Tracking it against The Gentlemen and KAOS, you can see the show is doing mildly better than the latter, but ultimately still struggling against The Gentlemen’s instant success.
Why we are so confident about a potential renewal, though, is because of how well the show is performing in the daily top 10s, particularly in its home country of the United Kingdom. We’ve often noted how international titles often get renewed when they spend a full 30 days in the top 10s, and that will easily be the case for Dept. Q with the show still in the #4 position in the top 10s there as of June 24th.
The show is also performing around the globe, having featured in 78 countries in its first couple of weeks in the top 10. Perhaps more importantly, the show is a blockbuster hit in the UK, garnering numerous glowing reviews, and has just been toppled from the number 1 position in the daily top 10s by Ginny & Georgia season 3.
Looking at FlixPatrol data (they measure the daily top 10s on Netflix), you can see the show has maintained steady in weeks 2-4 in the daily top 10s, and the heatmap of popularity clearly shows the series is most popular across Europe and in Australia and New Zealand.
What to expect from Department Q Season 2 if renewed
As we discussed when we covered the ending alongside our (pretty positive) review, season 2 of Department Q is an absolute must. While one of the cold cases presented throughout the first season was resolved, another still lingers, and one that pertains to Morck himself.
Season 2 of Department Q looks set to leave the horrors of Merritt Lingard’s kidnapping behind and dive headfirst into murkier waters. With the Jennings family’s twisted revenge plot now fully unravelled, Merritt rescued, Lyle shot, and Elsa’s fate sealed with a final ferry ride, the cold case squad closes the file on its first big win. But one mystery remains wide open: the Leith Park shooting, the incident that kicked off the entire investigation.
What starts as a bungled police check spirals into something far more calculated, a trap that leaves detectives injured and one officer dead (plus the informant). Carl believes it was never a random encounter, but a coordinated hit involving a gangster named Eugene Errington, a compromised witness, and a getaway driver with links to both. With Moira now enlisting Hardy to dig into the case off the books, and Carl’s own connection to it starting to look suspicious, Season 2 is shaping up to be less about justice for the dead and more about who in the living world can still be trusted.
There’s plenty of source material to be woven into a second season alongside tracking the main cold case. Some of the books most likely to be adapted could include:
- The Absent One (Fasandræberne) – Follows an old double murder tied to wealthy schoolboys turned powerful men
- The Purity of Vengeance – Covers state-run abuse programs and institutional cruelty which fits in with season 1s themes of care home exploitation and buried trauma
- The Marco Effect – A runaway boy uncovers financial crimes and human trafficking
Picture: Netflix
That’s it from us for the moment. We’ll keep this updated over time with the latest developments and any new information we hear about Dept. Q, but now it’s over to you. Do you want to see the Department Q return for a second season? Let us know in the comments down below.
