REVIEW: ‘The Copenhagen Test’ Is Eccentric Spycraft With Solid Storytelling

The Copenhagen Test Season 1 is a Peacock Original eight-episode series that follows a clandestine operative whose body has been hacked. Yeah, you read that right. Why bother infiltrating the United States’ clandestine services yourself when you can just tap into someone who is already there? 

Created by showrunner Thomas Brandon, the series serves as his first step into the espionage space, but this is not the first time for Peacock. In fact, The Copenhagen Test fits right into its library with The Day of the Jackal, only it embraces eccentricities even more. 

The series follows Alexander Hale, played by Simu Liu. A first-generation Chinese-American analyst is stuck downstairs at his top-secret spy agency, The Orphanage. He doesn’t see the field, but regardless of how important his job is, he just wants more. 

The Orphanage is a “who watches the watchers” situation. They exist to watch the clandestine arm of the United States government, making sure they stay in line, don’t do crimes, and don’t get compromised. Split into the downstairs, where Alexander sits, and the upstairs, where the field agents are, they’re also facing their worst nightmare: a mole. 

The Copenhagen Test is Peacock’s best-performing series, and we can see why. 

While Alexander may be dismissed because of his background and how he failed the titular Copenhagen Test, he does begin to catch on to the mole before everyone else. Only, the mole is him, transmitting his surroundings back to someone he does not know and can not see through his eyes and ears.

Having been biohacked, Alexander is driven to stay trustworthy and serve his country in a way that begins to feel sad once the audience sees how expendable he is. However, by making the right moves, he is able to keep the fiction alive that he’s unaware of the hack, utilizing rooms where no frequency can escape and trusting the Orphange to look out for him. 

In order to take advantage of the hack and hopefully find out who initiated it, Alexander works with his agency to hunt those responsible, even as The Orphanage builds a fake world around him, assigning him a new “girlfriend” (Melissa Barrera). But the line between reality and acting gets thinner once his mission begins to tip over his past as well as his present. 

Simu Liu and Melissa Barerra have great chemistry, and that drives their more grounded moments.

Despite its absurd premise, The Copenhagen Test Season 1 takes itself seriously while also giving audiences pieces of eccentric spycraft. Grounded in how the characters deal with each other, but out of the realm of reality when it comes to Alexander’s compromised body, the two balance against each other to create a series that builds on expectation. 

The Copenhagen Test is Simu Liu’s best performance, if only because it forces him to change his demeanor on a whim. Having been limited to mostly films recently, this new Peacock Original gives the Shang-Chi actor ample space to build something for himself outside of the MCU. And if the viewership for the series is any indication, he’ll get the chance to keep this story going. 

While Liu’s performance as Alexander is solid, it’s his chemistry with the sardonic but charismatic Michelle, played by Melissa Barrera, that sells it all. For her part, Michelle is a piece of a very large puzzle. However, as a “good soldier” for the CIA, her ability to slip in and out of emotions used the actress’s range extremely well. One moment she’s calculated, the next she’s flirty, and the next still she’s engaged in hand-to-hand combat. 

The Copenhagen Test Season 1 uses its absurd narrative situations to get the most out of its audience. 

Barerra has already stood out as an actress who offers both emotion and physicality when you look at her filmography. Thankfully, The Copenhagen Test Season 1 doesn’t waste her. In fact, her role is the only one that doesn’t feel entirely explained. Hinted at? Sure, but Barerra’s performance with Alexander goes beyond what we see in this story or on screen, leaving even more to see in The Copenhagen Test Season 2, if we’re lucky.

But it’s not just Liu and Barerra that offer up charisma this season. The Copenhagen Test has an ensemble cast that doesn’t skip a beat. With television veterans Brian d’Arcy James and Adina Porter as pillars in the ensemble cast, with Sara Amini, Saul Rubinek, Adam Godley, Kathleen Chalfant, and Mark O’Brien rounding out the cast. Still, it’s Sinclair Daniel who grounds the series extremely well as Samantha. 

A predictive analyst, Samantha explains Alexander’s movements by telling the audience and the Orphanage exactly what he is doing, how he is doing it, and finding the motive behind what he will do next. Samantha is endearing in her uncertainty, but when she is in the middle of getting it just right, it’s perfect to accompany the action and intrigue, especially when she gets it wrong.

The Copenhagen Test’s ensemble is just as well-defined as its leads. 

The Copenhagen Test’s narrative is manipulated by Alexander, what he sees, and what he doesn’t. With twists that never stop, halfway through the season, the audience has to accept that when we are by Alexander’s side, we’re not seeing it all. While there is no narration, casting him as an unreliable narrator for the audience and having the Orphanage monitor him makes every episode intense. 

But that uncertainty isn’t how the series begins. Instead, we begin trusting Alexander, and then it slowly unravels. In the first few episodes, the audience clearly knows more than either the Orphanage or Alexander.

We can see both sides, what’s been fabricated, what they see, and what Alexander sets up. However, piece by piece, it all begins to come unbound, letting more uncertainty creep in, taking the audience from the omniscient reader to the unknowing audience. 

By the season’s midpoint, The Copenhagen Test Season 1 bucks expectation and resets its stage in a meaningful way. While the series itself is less about espionage and more about surviving, the thrilling situations it sets up make the most of everyday surroundings. 

Believable clandestine service operatives and eccentric spycraft balance against each other extremely well. 

Instead of relying on large action set pieces, the action sequences take place in homes, businesses, and on a roof. The scale feels small, but the stakes are never too far behind. In fact, the minimalist approach to setting up fight sequences pays off in spades, making the series more grounded than you might expect from a man whose body has been hacked and who is transmitting what he sees and hears to a clandestine group trying to infiltrate the Orphanage. 

Additionally, when it comes to motive, The Copenhagen Test Season 1 balances government interest and personal revenge evenhandedly. As one of Peacock’s most-watched television series, it’s easy to see why. There isn’t any distracting CGI work; there is just solid spycraft, grounded relationships, and a premise that leaves everyone on uncertain ground from start to finish. 

When the entire world has been constructed around your main character, both as a means to watch him and as a means to infiltrate him, the questions don’t stop. With every character on uncertain ground well into the final episodes, the audience is encouraged to form their own assumptions and answers, while the story itself offers no answers until the last moment. 

The Copenhagen Test Season 1 is one of Peacock’s strongest series, if it gets a Season 2.

There are only two issues I have with the series. The first is that Alexander’s identity as a Chinese-American operative does make sense to point out, but the series’ script goes too far in spelling it out for the audience. We don’t need to know all the ways in which a Chinese-American may be scrutinized, especially when the series goes to great lengths to work it into action.

Additionally, as we see Samantha use it as a way to profile him for the Orphanage does much more than focusing over and over on the same line from an interview. It becomes awkward even when foundational. 

The second issue comes down to The Copenhagen Test Season 1’s length. Given the traditional expectation for streaming television, the series is only eight episodes long. However, given the revelations of the last episode’s final moments, it’s hard to understand why this choice was made.

While this streamer has been relatively good at greenlighting second seasons for its shows, the steep cliff the audience is thrown off of lacks context. Yes, we’re meant to be left hanging, but when series are often cut short, the questions trump the answers we get.

That said, The Copenhagen Test is a breakout to start 2026 for Peacock. And we can thank its stellar cast for that. The series offers great intrigue, fantastic chemistry, and enough espionage chaos to make you second-guess yourself every time you think you’ve solved the mystery. Twists upon twists, this is a series we need a second season for in order to hit the landing perfectly, but with what we have, it’s a great start. 

The Copenhagen Test Season 1 is streaming now, exclusively on Peacock.