If you’ve been looking for something to fill the Line of Duty-shaped hole in your life, then we’ve got some good news for you.
Apple TV Plus has very kindly dropped a new trailer for the fifth season of the still criminally underwatched spy series Slow Horses.
This Bafta-winning series offers a glimpse into the ruthless (and often grimly hilarious) world of British espionage and follows a group of ‘useless’ spies who are so incompetent you wouldn’t trust them to catch a cold.
As a result of their often career-ending buffoonery, they’ve been shipped off to an administrative dumping ground known to agents as Slough House.
There, under the watchful eye of the grouchy and gassy Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the ‘Slow Horses’ are expected to do mindless admin work until they quit or die of boredom.
Still, even a slow horse can win a race every now and again, and MI5’s most embarrassing agents often find themselves drawn into conspiracies only they can solve.
Based on Mick Herron’s Slough House series, the six-episode fifth season of Slow Horses will adapt the London Rules book.
This new six-part season will see nobody’s favourite IT guy, Roddy Ho, hook up with a glamorous new girlfriend who might not be what she seems.
And when a series of attacks leaves London and the UK on the brink of disaster, it’s up to Lamb and his network of nitwits to try to work out what terrorists have to do with a misanthrope’s love life.
What makes Slow Horse so good?
Our Deputy TV editor explains the special sauce that makes Slow Horses so entertaining…
Slow Horses works for a number of reasons. It’s exceptionally well-written, the direction is slick, and the performances are electric, but there’s something special about this scrappy little show.
I think what it is, is that there’s something quintessentially British about it. Why? Well, the first is how mundane it strives to be.
This show isn’t set in the stylish and glamorous world of spies like James Bond orJason Bourne. Instead, it’s set in the grey administrative world of John Le Carré and George Smiley.
Other than that, it’s fundamentally an underdog story. Time and time again, the Slow Horses are underestimated, and time and time again, they prove their supposed betters aren’t as far away from Slough House as they’d like.
Complicating matters, however, is MI5’s growing suspicions about Lamb and his team. How can the Slow Horses save the day when they’re under investigation themselves?
Well, you’ll have to wait and see, but this isn’t the stickiest jam they’ve found themselves in.
Described by critics as ‘undoubtedly the best spy series on television’ and’so damn good’, this is a show you need to start watching.
Slow Horses season 5 begins on September 24, 2025, exclusively on Apple TV Plus.
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