Slow Horses
Apple has given us many genuinely great shows that start with the letter ‘S’, from Severance to Shrinking to Silo and many more, but few bang out new seasons quite like Slow Horses.
Indeed, few shows out there have been renewed so far into the future, either. With Season 5 just around the corner, we now have three more seasons to look forward to, and I’d be shocked if it wasn’t actually four. Apple just announced that the spy thriller, based on the books by Mick Herron, has been renewed for a seventh season.
The award-winning series (which you should watch ASAP if you haven’t already) stars Gary Oldman as the malodorous but brilliant Jackson Lamb, the rundown chief of Slough House where British spies are sent when they crash out at MI5. This band of misfits is colloquially known as the “slow horses” and includes River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar), Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) and more (including several dead agents at this point in the story). Other cast members include Jonathan Pryce as David Cartwright and Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner.
The reason I say I’d be shocked if we didn’t have four more seasons of the espionage series to look forward to is the fact that the series creators film two seasons back-to-back. Season 6 has already wrapped filming ahead of Season 5’s release. If the trend continues, this would mean that Season 8 will almost certainly be done filming by the time Season 6 lands on Apple TV+.
Season 5 of the Will Smith-created series is based on Herron’s novel, London Rules, the sequel to Spook Street which Season 4 was based on. The Season 5 logline reads: “In season five of “Slow Horses,” everyone is suspicious when resident tech nerd Roddy Ho has a glamorous new girlfriend. When a series of increasingly bizarre events occur across the city, it falls to the Slow Horses to work out how everything is connected. After all, Lamb knows that in the world of espionage, the London Rules — cover your back — always apply.” Saul Metzstein returns as director.
Season 7 of the series is based on the book Bad Actors. According to the press release, “In season seven, Lamb and his Slow Horses are on the hunt to find and neutralize a mole at the heart of British Government before they can bring down the state.”
For his part, Oldman has said he’d like to keep filming the show as long as he can. “I consider it very much a highlight of my career,” the actor told AV Club. “It’s a wonderful character [and has]
great source material that we do our best to honor each time out. The bonus, really—and the surprise of doing it—is this sort of company feel that we have. It’s the closest I’ve come to the theater in that sense, of having a company. It’s like you have your own sort of conspiracy. You’re a gang, you know? You’re in a club. I’m very fond of them. They’re just an amazing, really lovely group of people who I think have inhabited these characters and just do a brilliant job.”
