▲ 62 r/DeptQ
Bts photo from shooting series 2
CMS Bike School shared this lovely picture of Team Doolally from the series 2 shoot today. Good to know Carl is still his old ill-fitting jeans and nondescript jumper self...
u/aka_TeeJay — 9 days ago
▲ 23 r/DeptQ
Dept. Q Panel at the Bloody Scotland Festival: Tickets now available for streaming access
Looks like you can now purchase tickets to access the Dept. Q panel discussion via online streaming. Tickets are £6.75.
The Matthew Goode fanpage As Goode As Gold has received confirmation from Bloody Scotland that the online ticket gives you access to the live stream of the physical event at the festival on Sunday, 20th September at 3 pm. You can either watch it live on the 20th or a recording that will be available to watch until 30th September.
u/aka_TeeJay — 13 days ago
▲ 26 r/DeptQ
Dept. Q - Episode 1x05 Recap
I've just posted the Dept. Q episode recap for 1x05 on my blog. As usual, it's a recounting of the episode with a bit of personal commentary and some fun facts sprinkled in.
Episode 1x05 Recap
u/aka_TeeJay — 20 days ago
▲ 28 r/DeptQ
Dept. Q - Episode 1x04 Recap
It's been a few months, but I finally had the time to write another Dept. Q episode recap. Episode 1x04 is now up on my blog for anyone who might want to re-experience it with a bit of personally commentary and some fun facts strewn in.
Episode 1x04 Recap
u/aka_TeeJay — 1 month ago
▲ 17 r/DeptQ
Updates to Sub Rules
Just a quick note that we've recently added a few more rules to the sub. We have also added a new moderator to the team, u/butterizz.
Here is the current set of rules with updates marked in bold and italics.
No Spam
Content such as spam, scams, Al generated content or clickbait will be removed.
No Spoilers
Please hide TV show and book spoilers behind a spoiler tag.Please also keep titles free of spoilers! In the context of this sub, a spoiler is considered something that reveals a major twist or storyline or something that is unaired/unpublished content.
Civility
Please keep post content civil. Disagreements are natural and can be good, but do not attack others.Please report incivility as you see it and we will remove as necessary.
No Discrimination
We want this community to be a friendly place for people of all ethnicities, abilities, religious beliefs, genders, races, etc. Breaking this rule will result in an immediate ban.
Low Effort Content
Posts that are deemed low-effort include memes, single line posts etc. However, if it is deemed a positive addition to the sub/discussion, then it is welcome.
No duplicate news/old news
Posts with news announcements or links to articles that have already been shared will be removed unless they have additional discussion points that add value to the sub. Moderators will delete such posts at their discretion.
Regarding NSFW posts
Reviewed on a case-by-case basis, even posts marked NSFW may be removed.Examples would be pornographic content, or excessive violence.
No Commercial Advertising
Commercial advertising is not allowed on this sub. In the context of this sub, it would include such things as unofficial merch stores, Etsy shops or monetised content (e.g. YouTube videos). Self-promotion is allowed if you don't overdo it, the content is related to the show and is not monetised.
No direct links to X
As per wider discussion across Reddit, direct links to that platform are disallowed to reduce traffic being sent there. Properly credited screenshots from there are okay to post.
No Piracy or VPN work-arounds
Any sharing/asking of links to pirated content or streaming sites will be removed and the user will be banned. This includes advice on how to access the show via VPN. If you like the show, you should contribute by watching it legally. Dept. Q is available worldwide on Netflix.
Low Karma or New Account
Moderators may remove posts and comments from users with new accounts and/or low karma at their discretion.
Keep It Relevant
Please keep posts relevant to the show. If something isn’t directly related, please explain how it is connected.
u/aka_TeeJay — 2 months ago
Cast Announcement for Series 2 and first s2 Promo Photo
The first cast photo for Dept. Q series 2 has been released, along with finally more information about the series 2 cast.
Returning will be:
- Matthew Goode as Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck
- Alexej Manvelov as Akram Salim
- Leah Byrne as Detective Constable Rose Dickson
- Jamie Sives as Detective Chief Inspector James Hardy
- Mark Bonnar as Stephen Burns
- Kate Dickie as Detective Chief Superintendent Moira Jacobson
- Aaron McVeigh as Jasper Stewart
- Sanjeev Kohli as Martin Fleming
Newly joining for series 2 are:
- Aisling Franciosi (Speak No Evil, The Nightingale) as Kimmie
- Greg Wise (The Crown, The Buccaneers) as Derek Powell
- Nicholas Rowe (Mr. Holmes) as Thomas Fulton
- Tony Curran (Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Mary & George) as Winnie Calderwood
- Hamish Clark (Monarch of the Glen) as Christopher Herron
- Alex Ferns (Waiting for the Out, The Batman) as Phil Allenbeck
- Ross Anderson (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Rig) as Ricky Daddario
- Rebecca Root (Heartstopper, The Wheel of Time) as June Lovesay
- Isla Johnston (The Queen’s Gambit, The Carpenter’s Son) as Agnes
- Amy Brenneman (The Old Man, Private Practice) as Helen
We can only assume this means that Kelly MacDonald will not be back as Dr. Rachel Irving and Chloe Pirrie will not be back as Merritt Lingard.
Still no word on a possible release date. Filming began in Edinburgh and Aberdeen in May this year and is said to run through at least October.
u/aka_TeeJay — 2 months ago
▲ 14 r/BritishTV
ITV’s ‘Grace’ – A Critical Look From An Avid John Simm Fan
It’s fairly recently that I discovered John Simm as a fantastic British actor, which prompted me to look into more of his work (or rather all of his work), and so of course I came across ITV’s Grace where he plays the series’ protagonist Roy Grace that gives the show its name. (Fair warning, this review will be very John Simm heavy.)
Those who have seen it will know it’s a Brighton-based multipart crime series that’s based on the popular novels by English crime novelist Peter James. So far, six series have aired, each consisting of between two and four feature-length episodes with a seventh series currently in production.
Starting out as a two-part series a good number of years ago—2021 to be exact—we meet Detective Superintendent Roy Grace at a low point in his career. Relegated to cold cases after struggling with the unsolved disappearance of his wife Sandy, Roy isn’t exactly finding joy in his work anymore. It doesn’t help that he goes off the rails a little bit by eliciting the help of a supernatural medium to solve one of his cases that lands him some pretty unsavoury press coverage. Once a well-respected, skilled and smart detective, he has now been stashed away in an out-of-the-way office where his colleagues have mostly forgotten that he even exists.
Everyone except his old friend and mentee Glenn Branson, it seems. Glenn takes pity and reaches out to drag Roy out of his office and elicit his help on an active case that could use the experience of a sharp eye and a keen mind like Roy’s. Roy is initially reluctant to accept what he knows is mostly charity, but he’s also itching to get back out there, so he’s added to the investigative team in a consultancy role with Branson at the helm.
Helping Glenn and the team to solve the case eventually puts Roy back on the map, and before he knows it, he has his old team back as lead detective among Brighton’s finest. Helping Roy solve many more cases are his core team consisting of his old friend and colleague DS Glenn Branson, DS Bella Moy, DS Norman Potting and DC Nick Nicholl, although later series have a bit of change in team composition >!and Branson and Nicholl eventually get promotions!<.
John Simm portrays main protagonist Roy Grace, the character the series is named after and who carries the whole thing. Certainly a meaty role, and crime drama wouldn’t be crime drama if we didn’t also have a bit of a romance story for him in the mix.
When we first meet Roy, he is still very much hung up on the unexplained disappearance of his wife Sandy, leaving him haunted by the eventuality that he hasn’t done enough to find her. Now, years later, Glenn urges Roy to get back in the dating game, but there’s always that nagging feeling that Sandy might still be alive. >!That slowly changes when Roy sets eyes on newly appointed forensic pathologist Cleo Morey, and the two of them start a bit of a slow-burn romance that has its own ups and downs along the way.!<
With plenty of crime going around the Brighton and Hove area, Roy and his team certainly have their work cut out for them, with Peter James providing plenty of source material. However, not all episodes are based on the books and some of the narrative and characterisation has strayed from the original.
So far, so good. The thing is, when I first watched Grace, I was really hoping that it would not disappoint, but admittedly I don’t like the show unequivocally. The cases are certainly interesting but after six series of it, I am starting to see the glaring shortcomings that make it increasingly frustrating to watch as a John Simm fan. Before I delve any further, let me preface this with saying this is just my opinion, and clearly many others may and will disagree. But this is where I’m coming from:
I think television is at its best when it has three-dimensional characters. What I love are characters who are conflicted, whom you don’t love right away or don’t love unconditionally, who are flawed and maybe even a little problematic. I love characters who are imperfect, who tend to unapologetically mess things up, who have a good redemption arc.
And Roy… Well, Roy doesn’t have any of that—if we disregard that he’s a little too married to his work. He’s just a good egg through and through, which makes him, well… pretty bland. That’s sad enough when you have to say it about the person who carries the series, but unfortunately it’s not just Roy. None of the main characters have any depth to speak of, and every series they seem to spend less and less time on actual character exploration.
Particularly when you know what John Simm is capable of as an actor and how good he is at conveying emotional complexity, I want to bite my fist in eternal frustration. The scripts don’t give this cast of top-notch actors much to work with and it’s incredibly disappointing to see that Simm in particular is never given the chance to deliver anything remotely poignant as Roy Grace. All we ever seem to see him do is standing by a whiteboard, doling out instructions, or giving witnesses solemn looks as he interviews them about something or other…
And, you know, it’s not that I don’t get what they’re trying to do. Grace is first and foremost about the criminal cases. It builds on the books and what the source material gives the writers. The cases are (mostly) written well and it’s entertaining enough to tag along for the ride of figuring out who the culprit is and how the team gets to the end result of solving the case. But personally, I wish there was more of an emotional tether through it all – not just for Roy but also the other characters. I want to know what drives and motivates them, what their flaws are, how they handle challenging or interesting situations in their private lives and how and where they screw up.
With series 6 just having finished airing a few weeks ago, I was particularly frustrated with the many missed opportunities for character development that were blatantly ignored, such as >!exploring the integration of Bruno into Roy and Cleo’s lives or how the new development in the Sandy backstory would affect Roy, Cleo and Bruno on a more personal level.!< Yet, none of it was explored much beyond 60-second scenes that barely scraped at the surface of these issues, some of them executed so ungracefully that I rolled my eyes at how shoehorned the writing was.
To John Simm’s credit, though, book author Peter James has said that when he writes Roy Grace novels now, he actually pictures Simm as the character. High praise from the creator himself. Another thing we keep hearing is that everyone who works on the show always talks about how much fun everyone is having on set, and that because the subject matter is pretty heavy, they make up for it by joking and laughing on set a lot.
That said, my complaints about Grace seem somewhat nonconformist since I don’t really see anyone else having similar thoughts when the series is being discussed online. People on social media seem to either be incredibly enthusiastic about it, or they are more concerned with whether or not John Simm is well cast as Roy Grace, how the TV version doesn’t adequately reflect the books, >!that Norman Potting is sorely missed and should come back, !<that the characters are wearing sunglasses in outdoor scenes (shocking, seeing how it was filmed in the summer) or, well, Simm's hair… (No, srsly.)
At the end of the day, Grace is still a very popular crime series and it wouldn’t be running for all these years if there wasn’t some sort of winning formula to it. It seems to have a loyal following, perhaps from a more casual audience that enjoys a good crime story on Sunday night. Enough of one that ITV has commissioned another series, which means we’ll see Roy Grace back on our screens some time in 2027. Filming for series 7 has reportedly started on April 27, 2026.
If you want to catch up with previous episodes, you can do so via ITVX and STV Player in the UK (up to and including series 6) and Britbox in the US (up to and including series 5). In other countries, it is streaming on different platforms and networks. Previous series have also been released on DVD in the UK and Australia.
Alongside John Simm are starring Richie Campbell, Zoë Tapper, Laura Elphinstone, Brad Morrison, Craig Parkinson >!(series 1 to 4)!< and Juliette Motamed >!(series 5 onwards)!<.
If you’d like to dig deeper, here’s some additional behind-the-scenes and interview content:
- Series 1 Behind the Scenes
- Series 2 Filming Grace
- John Simm and Zoe Tapper on 'This Morning' about Series 2
- John Simm and Richie Campbell on 'The One Show' about Series 2
- John Simm on 'This Morning' about Series 3
- John Simm and Zoe Tapper on 'The One Show' about Series 3
- John Simm on 'This Morning' about Series 4
- John Simm and Richie Campbell on 'The One Show' about Series 5
I'll leave you with some extra behind-the-scenes shots. They do seem to have a lot of fun on this set. 🙂
u/aka_TeeJay — 2 months ago