A new sci-fi thriller asks what happens when your eyes and ears are hacked by your enemies. The Copenhagen Test, streaming now on Peacock, takes a classic spy story and mixes it with a famous idea from a beloved Jim Carrey movie.
The show’s creator, Thomas Brandon, says the series was directly inspired by the 1998 film The Truman Show. In that movie, Jim Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a man who does not know his entire life is a staged television program. Brandon said the core idea for his new show clicked when he combined a “sci-fi story about a guy” whose senses are hacked with his own love for spy tales. He realized his main character would have to pretend he did not know about the hack to catch the culprits, forcing his agency to build a completely fake world around him.
“I looked up and realized we’re talking about a Truman Show world,” Brandon said. “We’re talking about a world where this guy does not know what’s real or what’s not”.
The result is an eight-episode series that has been at the top of Peacock’s charts since its release.
How The Truman Show Idea Became a Spy Thriller
The connection between the new show and the classic film is clear when you look at their stories. In The Truman Show, the main character’s town, friends, and daily routine are all part of an elaborate set for a TV show. He is the last person to discover the truth.
The Copenhagen Test applies this concept to the dangerous world of espionage. The series follows Alexander Hale, played by Simu Liu. Hale is a former special forces soldier who now works at a secret agency called The Orphanage. After a mission goes wrong, he discovers that high-tech “nanomachines” have been implanted in his body. These machines turn his eyes into cameras and his ears into microphones, letting an unknown enemy see and hear everything he does.
Instead of removing the hack, his agency decides to use it. They keep the surveillance a secret from Hale and build a false reality around him to track down the people responsible. He is given a new mission and even assigned a new girlfriend as part of the act. The show explores his struggle to figure out what in his life is real and what is staged for his unseen audience.
Simu Liu Leads a Cast Questioning Reality
Simu Liu, best known for his role as Shang-Chi in the Marvel movies, stars as Alexander Hale. Liu is also an executive producer on the series and was deeply involved in its creation, joining the writers’ room to help shape the story. He has described the show as a mix of Black Mirror and Inception.
For Liu, the appeal was in playing a character who is always performing. Once Alexander learns about the hack, every glance and word becomes a piece of a complex performance meant for both his allies and his enemies.
The cast includes Melissa Barrera (from Scream), Sinclair Daniel, Brian d’Arcy James, and Mark O’Brien. They play characters who orbit Alexander’s life, leaving him—and the viewer—to guess who is a friend and who is part of the constructed fiction.
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Why The Truman Show Remains So Influential
The Truman Show was released in 1998 and was a critical success. It is often ranked as one of Jim Carrey’s best films. The film was praised for its smart and thoughtful look at celebrity culture and privacy long before the rise of social media and constant digital surveillance.
Its story of a man trapped in a manufactured life has inspired many other TV shows and movies. The Copenhagen Test is the latest project to use that core idea, updating it for an age of brain-hacking technology and global spy networks. The show combines this with action and mystery, drawing comparisons to movies like Minority Report and the Jason Bourne series.
Where to Watch and What to Expect
All eight episodes of The Copenhagen Test are available to stream exclusively on Peacock. The series debuted on December 27, 2025. Since its release, it has received mostly positive reviews and has been a popular title on the platform.
The show presents a world of total surveillance where trust is impossible. It asks how a person can take control of their own destiny when they cannot be sure of anything they see or hear. By building on the foundation laid by The Truman Show, The Copenhagen Test creates a new kind of paranoia for the modern age.
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