Jason Bourne Meets Minority Report In James Wan's 8-Part Sci-Fi Series

Published Sep 1, 2026, 7:02 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While James Wan’s Peacock series only lasted one season, the daring mix of the Jason Bourne movies and Minority Report deserved to fare far better with mainstream audiences. It is a great time to be a TV fan, and a hard time to be a creator in the industry for the same reason. The explosion in popularity of streaming services means that there are more shows vying for the eyes of viewers than ever before, so it is increasingly difficult for a new series to stand out from the crowd. While Netflix’s Bloodlines deserved to be a bigger hit, the psychological thriller has to compete with hits like Behind Her Eyes, His & Hers, and the five-season masterpiece You to get viewers, and that’s just counting other psychological thriller shows available on the same streaming service. Add in competitors like Prime Video’s Homecoming, The Girlfriend, and 56 Days, Apple TV’s Servant, and Hulu’s A Murder at the End of the World and Nine Perfect Strangers, and it is more understandable than ever that shows struggle to find their audience. This is particularly unfortunate for The Copenhagen Test, a futuristic sci-fi thriller series from Peacock that was a perfect successor to the already underrated Person of Interest. Starring Melissa Barrera as Michelle Cyr and Simu Liu as Alexander Hale, a pair of field agents working for the secretive intelligence agency Orphanage, The Copenhagen Test was a dark spy thriller with a sci-fi twist. Set in the near future, the show saw Liu’s Hale discover that his brain has been hacked, forcing him to uncover the hackers while knowing they can see and hear everything he sees and hears. The Copenhagen Test Is A Futuristic Sci-Fi Thriller From Producer James Wan Produced by horror legend James Wan, The Copenhagen Test has a killer premise worthy of Blade Runner’s Philip K. Dick. The cyberpunk author’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” and his novella The Minority Report both helped introduce ideas of mental surveillance and memory manipulation to science fiction, but The Copenhagen Test takes these premises further by fusing Dick’s sci-fi concepts with pulse-pounding spy show action. While Liu offers a layered turn as Hale, Barrera is the show’s breakout star. The Scream 2022 heroine gives her field agent Cyr a complex, nuanced personality that feels real and lived-in, grounding the more outlandish elements of the show’s story and ensuring The Copenhagen Test’s sci-fi plot never feels like a far-fetched space opera. Compared to fellow streaming hits like The Expanse, The Copenhagen Test is very much a realistic spy show first, and a futuristic dystopian sci-fi series second. Gripping, gritty, and authentically unpredictable, The Copenhagen Test benefits from pacy direction by Splice’s Vincenzo Natali and American Ultra’s Nima Nourizadeh. In a packed field of spy shows including Netflix’s The Night Agent, Prime Video’s Citadel and Reacher franchises, and Apple TV’s Slow Horses, it is a credit to The Copenhagen Test’s ingenuity that the series deserves a recommendation to even the busiest genre fan. The Copenhagen Test Gave Melissa Barrera Her Best Role Her Since The Scream Movies Christos Kalohoridis/©Peacock/Courtesy Everett Collection While there is a lot to like in The Copenhagen Test, what makes the show’s cancellation after only one season a true shame is the central turn by Barrera. By the time she gained the lead role in the series, the Carmen star had already proven her scream queen bonafides in Scream 2022, Scream VI, and Abigail, as well as impressing in the small-screen survival thriller Keep Breathing. Still, The Copenhagen Test is a revelation, proving that Barrera has range to spare and potential as an action movie heroine outside of her horror chops. As such, The Copenhagen Test's mix of Minority Report and the Jason Bourne franchise is a must-watch for genre fans and newcomers alike, despite how many shows the streaming series competes with for attention. Release Date 2025 - 2025-00-00 Network Peacock Directors Vincenzo Natali, Kevin Tancharoen, Nima Nourizadeh, Jet Wilkinson Writers Thomas Brandon, Marilyn Fu, Adam Benic, Jamie Chan, Hannah Rosner, Jennifer Yale, Monica Buccini Creator(s) Thomas Brandon