Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas are disappointed spies in the Slow Horses trailer
The Apple TV Plus spy series follows MI5's outcasts on a quest to redeem themselves
Aux News Slow Horses
After previously giving us a first look at Gary Oldman in costume, Apple TV+ has now shared the trailer for the new series Slow Horses, also starring Kristin Scott Thomas. Based on the book of the same name by Mick Herron, the six-episode show follows a group of reject MI5 agents on a mission that’s way out of their depth.
Oldman’s Jackson Lamb leads the Slough House office, and his charges include Jack Lowden as River Cartwright (Small Axe, Fighting With My Family), Olivia Cooke (Sound Of Metal, Ready Player One) as Sid Baker, and Rosalind Eleazar (The Personal History Of David Copperfield, Harlots) as Louisa Guy.
These characters have all been taken out of the field for their previous failures, and they’re all desperate to impress Lamb and his boss Diana Taverner (Scott Thomas). Investigating a hostage situation seems like a simple enough way to get back into MI5's good graces, but again, these are not the agency’s best and brightest. Accidentally killing a person of interest does not seem like it would lead to getting promoted, but hey, we’re not spymasters.
All six episodes of Slow Horses were directed by James Hawes (Black Mirror, The Alienist) and written by Veep alum Will Smith. While the series has the look of a tense, chilly crime drama, it also promises a healthy dose of dark humor, bravely considering the possibility that espionage could be deeply uncool and involve digging through garbage. Slow Horses asks the timeless question: how will this ragtag band of misfits come together to save the day?
The first two episodes of the series will be available on Apple TV+ on April 1, followed by weekly releases on Fridays. Mick Herron’s Slough House series consists of eight novels, but there’s no word yet on the adaptation of further books.
4 Comments
I don’t know if it was intentional, but I’m getting a real Misfits vibe from that description.
Gosh. I read the book and it’s really good – and Oldman is perfect casting. The author has written more in the series, and I’d love it if this became a bunch of movies.
I’ll give it a shot. Mick Herron has never been my favorite spy novelist, but that’s mostly because of his style rather than his plots. Stylistically, he seems to be trying too hard to be the next le Carre, and let’s face it, no one can measure up to that. A TV series might be able to sidestep that particular problem. Anybody else think Gary Oldman’s accent here seems weird/slippy? Back in 2011 or so when he did Tinker Tailor he talked in interviews about living in the States for so long that he needed an English dialect coach when he took the role of Smiley. The accent in the trailer seems like an over-correction–it almost feels like an American actor trying to do a British accent. Maybe it’s because Oldman is naturally soft-spoken and Jackson Lamb is coarser, but the accent just hits me funny here. Maybe it will settle in over the course of the series and won’t seem so forced to me.
I hope he farts as much as he does in the books. I would love to be able to use farts as punctuation in the way Jackson Lamb does.