Like many spy thrillers before it, The Copenhagen Test wants you to trust no one. Whether it’s a secret government agency, a mysterious bartender, or our protagonist, everyone is hiding something. There’s a reason so many spy stories go to that well. Besides being a great hook for the audience, it’s also natural for a secret agent to question everything. To pull it off requires a delicate balance of character, storytelling, and the right amount of narrative twists. The Copenhagen Test almost gets there.
The series follows Alexander Hale (Simu Liu) a Chinese-American intelligence analyst operating for a secret group known as The Orphanage. The organization operates as something of a watchdog for other agencies, with an upstairs full of field agents and a downstairs for the analysts. When they discover a leak, Alexander becomes the chief suspect. Eventually, we learn someone hacked Alexander’s brain. With the help of other agents, including Michelle (Melissa Barrera) that mysterious bartender, Alexander plays the role of double agent. Or is he really playing a triple agent?
The primary goal of The Copenhagen Test seems to be keeping the viewer guessing. There’s an intriguing premise here full of twists, most of them thrilling. The problem is that viewers have to be left in the dark for many of these turns to land. It works thematically to put the viewer in the mind of Alexander, but makes for a frustrating viewing experience as the series goes on. The writing’s disinterest in world-building only adds to that. This is a world where brains can get hacked into and the US intelligence community is under constant threat from unknown forces. It’s close enough to our own reality that it doesn’t require much effort, but we get none.
With the constant questions of allegiance, The Copenhagen Test requires a lead actor who can balance our sympathies and skepticism. Simu Liu is more than up to the task. Liu, who made waves in the MCU with Shang-Chi, has been waiting for an opportunity to show off those action chops again. He proves he’s a capable leading man, and his scenes with Barrera explode with chemistry. The duo’s fascinating to watch, whether they’re flirting or kicking ass.
The rest of the team helping them don’t get nearly as much to do. Brian d’Arcy James plays a pragmatic supervisor who does little more than look at screens and lecture those around him. Sinclair Daniel gets a fun role as Parker, the agent charged with processing how Alexander thinks. There’s a kinship between the two despite their inability to meet face-to-face that is engaging. The rest of the agents are even more underdeveloped.
The Copenhagen Test offers all the action and suspense you’d expect from a spy thriller, but it still feels like something is missing. Try as it might, the show can’t move past its ill-defined world and stock supporting cast. There’s enough here to make a fun movie, maybe even a franchise. As an 8-episode TV series, it feels drawn out. It turns out the big secret hiding in this show is that there isn’t much there once you get deep into it.
The Copenhagen Test is currently streaming on Peacock.