A crew member working on the second season of the Netflix series Dept Q has died after being found seriously injured at FirstStage Studios in Leith, Edinburgh, on the afternoon of 13 November 2026. Emergency crews were called to the studio at around 3pm, and paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene despite their efforts, according to the Liverpool Echo. His identity and age have not yet been released.
The death lands in an industry that has long treated the people who build its worlds as disposable. Behind every prestige drama is a workforce of technicians, riggers, electricians and runners, many of them freelancers on short contracts, without the protections that permanent staff in other sectors take for granted. When a worker dies on a production, the questions that follow are not only about what happened in that room. They are about the conditions that made the room possible.
What happened at FirstStage Studios
Police Scotland said in a statement that the death is not being treated as suspicious, but that inquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances. The force has not disclosed further detail about the nature of the man's injuries. The Mirror reported that emergency services were called to a report of a seriously injured man at the FirstStage Studios site in Leith, a facility that has hosted productions for Netflix, Amazon Prime and the Bafta-nominated film The Outrun.
Left Bank Pictures, the production company behind Dept Q, confirmed the death and said it was deeply shocked and saddened. A spokesperson for the company said the production was offering support to those affected, and that its thoughts were with the crew member's family, friends and colleagues. Yorkshire Live similarly reported that the man was found injured at the Edinburgh film studio and could not be saved by paramedics.
Production on the second season of Dept Q had only recently begun. The series, created by Scott Frank and based on the novels of Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, became one of Netflix's most watched dramas when it debuted in May 2025, and the streamer had confirmed that filming would return to Edinburgh with Matthew Goode reprising his role as DCI Carl Morck. The Daily Record was among the first outlets to report the death of a crew member on the Netflix production.
Why this death should not be treated as an isolated tragedy
The film and television industries in the UK have built their success on a model of precarity. BECTU, the broadcasting union, has warned for years that crew members routinely work excessive hours, move between productions without continuity of employment, and absorb the risks that producers externalise in the pursuit of tight schedules and tighter budgets. The boom in streaming content, of which Dept Q is a flagship example, has intensified that pressure: faster turnarounds, longer shooting days and a culture in which saying no to unsafe conditions can cost a worker their next contract.
This is not a matter of individual carelessness. It is structural. When profit is extracted from speed, and when the people closest to the risk have the least power to name it, harm becomes a predictable outcome rather than an accident. An industry that celebrates the radical aesthetics of its dramas, stories about corruption in high places and the violence of institutions, while subjecting its own workers to institutional neglect, demands the same critical scrutiny it likes to dramatise.
The irony is hard to miss. The second season of Dept Q, according to executive producer Rob Bullock, will follow Carl Morck's team as they pursue a terrible crime hidden in the highest echelons of Scottish society, a story about rich and powerful people who believe they are above the law. Fiction can hold institutions to account. The question is whether the institutions making that fiction will submit to the same accountability.
The human cost behind the content
It is worth pausing on who dies in these incidents, because it is rarely the people whose names appear in the credits first. Film sets are staffed by working class people, by migrants, by disabled and neurodivergent workers who have carved out space in an industry that was not designed for them, and by freelancers who cannot afford to refuse shifts. The loss of a colleague ripples through a community of craftspersons who often know each other across decades of shared productions.
Left Bank Pictures' statement of condolence is appropriate, and the offer of support is welcome. But condolences must be followed by transparency. Unions and safety campaigners will be watching for the outcome of the Police Scotland inquiry, and for any investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, whose findings in workplace deaths are too often slow, narrow and disconnected from the structural conditions that produce them. The family of the deceased worker, and the colleagues who worked beside him, deserve more than a closed file.
What happens next
Production on Dept Q's second season is expected to pause while inquiries continue, though neither Netflix nor Left Bank Pictures has confirmed the timeline. Police Scotland says its investigation remains open. The identity of the crew member will be released in due course, once his family has been informed.
For an industry that has spent a decade telling stories about institutional failure, the test is whether it can recognise its own. The crew member who died at FirstStage Studios on 13 November was not a character in a procedural. He was a worker, and his death belongs in the record of what this industry asks of the people who make it run.
FAQ
Who died at the Dept Q studio in Edinburgh?
A male crew member working on the second season of the Netflix series Dept Q died on 13 November 2026 after being found seriously injured at FirstStage Studios in Leith, Edinburgh. His identity and age have not been released.
Is the death being treated as suspicious?
Police Scotland said the death is not being treated as suspicious, but that inquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances.
What is Dept Q?
Dept Q is a Netflix crime series created by Scott Frank and based on the novels of Jussi Adler-Olsen. It debuted in May 2025 and its second season, starring Matthew Goode as DCI Carl Morck, had just entered production in Edinburgh.