Apple TV+ released its first trailer for Slow Horses, its darkly comic espionage thriller series starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. And judging by the 2+ minute preview, the show looks like it will be both hilarious and thrilling — a rare feat — as it depicts the fates of “screw-up” MI5 agents sent to “Slough House.”
“Bringing you up to speed’s like trying to explain Norway to a dog,” section chief Jackson Lamb (Oldman) says to a group of his hapless charges at one point. The scene is intercut with the Scott Thomas character explaining, with characteristic elegance and wit, that no agent has ever returned from Slough House to respectable duty.
Apple TV+ Slow Horses trailer suggests a thrilling black comedy
The six-episode series is based on the CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning first novel in Mick Herron’s series of the same name. It follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents serving in a dumping-ground MI5 department known disparagingly as Slough House.
Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) stars as Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but irascible and, frankly, exhausted-looking leader of the bumbling spies. They’ve all ended up at Slough House after making career-ending mistakes of one sort or another.
The cast includes Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient), BAFTA Scotland Award winner Jack Lowden, Olivia Cooke, Saskia Reeves, Dustin Demri-Burns, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung and Paul Higgins. Academy Award nominee Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes) makes a special appearance. Now that’s know that’s something worth looking forward to.
See-Saw Films (Power of the Dog) produced the series, which Will Smith (Veep) adapted for television. Graham Yost executive produces alongside Smith and James Hawes, who also directs all six episodes.
The first two episodes of Slow Horses will stream starting April 1, with the remaining episodes coming out one at a time on subsequent Fridays.
Apple TV+ is available by subscription for $4.99 a month. Its films, documentaries and series have won 211 awards and received 950 nominations since the streaming service launched in 2019.
