2022 · TV-MA · Series · Season 1
A spy series that treats its audience the way its protagonist treats his superiors — with barely concealed contempt and a great deal of intelligence.
Slow Horses is adapted from Mick Herron’s novel of the same name and concerns Slough House, a dumping ground for MI5 agents who have committed career-ending errors and been reassigned to bureaucratic purgatory rather than dismissed outright. Jackson Lamb, their handler, is played by Gary Oldman in what might be his finest television performance — a man of profound intelligence disguised as spectacular indifference, eating badly and manipulating everyone in the room. The show is a spy thriller in the same sense that a good whisky is a drink: technically accurate but beside the point. What it is really about is failure, and competence, and the distance between the two. Six episodes, each one precise. It does not waste a scene.
Watch it over two or three evenings rather than all at once — it rewards the kind of attention that a single sitting tends to blur. Best in the late hours when the day has already made its demands and you want something that will engage without requiring enthusiasm. It is not a cheerful show, but it has a dark wit that surfaces in exactly the right moments, and the ending of the season lands cleanly without the usual hedging. Each season adapts a different Herron novel, which means the show has natural stopping points and a clear sense of its own shape. Start here.
VERDICT · The best spy series in years — and the least interested in being one.
POUR · A blended Scotch, nothing precious. Lamb would insist.
Planning an evening around this? The Documentary Dinner →
Slow Horses began as a novel — Mick Herron's series is worth the read.
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