Gary Oldman starring in adoption of 'Slough House' books for Apple TV+

Gary Oldman will star in a drama about spies not up to the job, called "Slow Horses" based on the long-running "Slough House" book series.

The new show for Apple TV+ is centered around British spies working for MI5 — but not the best ones. They have all been culled out of mainstream operations, and are in a division of the spy agency reserved for under-performers and and those who have made critical mistakes in Her Majesty's Secret Service.

The role is a rare television one for Oldman. He previously starred as a spy in the 2011 "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" remake, and gleaned an Academy Award nomination for that performance. He is fresh off an Academy Award win for his performance of Winston Churchill.

The show will be produced by See-Saw films. See-Saw Films is multi-national, produces television and motion pictures, and has released a number of award-winning films, "The King's Speech", and six-time Academy Award nominated "Lion," which won two BAFTA Awards.

See-Saw was part of the establishing firms that established Fulcrum Media Finance. Fulcrum has provided cash and services for over 150 film and television productions. It isn't presently clear if Apple's deal for "Slow Horses" is part of a larger initiative.

Apple's executives in charge of Apple TV+ programming deals, Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht commissioned the show, according to Variety. Veep writer Will Smith is the primary writer and executive producer, with seven other co-producers.

The "Slough House" book series presently has six novels and some novellas, and all were written by author Mick Herron. The second volume in this series, "Dead Lions," earned Herron the Crime Writers' Association 2013 Gold Dagger award.

A release date for the series is not yet known.

9 Comments

razorpit 1793 comments · 17 Years

About 5 years ago

Sounds interesting.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

So far, excellent quality on TV+

seanismorris 1624 comments · 8 Years

I don’t have an interest in TV+ (at least not yet) but they signed up an excellent actor Gary Oldman.

I haven’t watched TV in 5+ years
(with the exception of NFL/NBA occasionally at a friends)

I’d rather read a book than watch TV. Watching something in 30min. Increments (after the normal commercials) kills the entertainment. Also, waiting a week for the next episode doesn’t satisfy.

At least with TV+ they’ve killed the commercials, but they’re still inferior to movies. TV works for news, weather and game-shows but aren’t great for telling a story. They did do right with adapting a book to TV... that will help with following along (assuming you read the books first).

StrangeDays 12959 comments · 8 Years

seanismorris said:

I don’t have an interest in TV+ (at least not yet) but they signed up an excellent actor Gary Oldman.

I haven’t watched TV in 5+ years
(with the exception of NFL/NBA occasionally at a friends)

I’d rather read a book than watch TV. Watching something in 30min. Increments (after the normal commercials) kills the entertainment. Also, waiting a week for the next episode doesn’t satisfy.
At least with TV+ they’ve killed the commercials, but they’re still inferior to movies. TV works for news, weather and game-shows but aren’t great for telling a story. They did do right with adapting a book to TV... that will help with following along (assuming you read the books first).

That's an...interesting...opinion. Not one most believe, however. Serialized narratives of the sort we've been enjoying for years are precisely why this is called the "golden era of television". The stories are deep and encompassing. TV actors used to be second-rate compared to film, but no longer. Serialized TV narratives allow much longer, slower, deeper story-telling that cannot be completed in a two-hour set block. This became obvious way back w/ the Sopranos and hasn't stopped.

As for 30-minute increments, these are usually comedies and can operate just fine.

As for waiting a week between episode, firstly that isn't even true on some of the major services (Netflix, Amazon), or with back catalogs that are what is called "online". Lastly, for shows that do post once a week, they pose little trouble to being enjoyable narratives. See the first 5 seasons of Game of Thrones, etc. Somehow our adult minds are able to be satisfied despite the wait.

StrangeDays said:

seanismorris said:

I don’t have an interest in TV+ (at least not yet) but they signed up an excellent actor Gary Oldman.

I haven’t watched TV in 5+ years
(with the exception of NFL/NBA occasionally at a friends)

I’d rather read a book than watch TV. Watching something in 30min. Increments (after the normal commercials) kills the entertainment. Also, waiting a week for the next episode doesn’t satisfy.
At least with TV+ they’ve killed the commercials, but they’re still inferior to movies. TV works for news, weather and game-shows but aren’t great for telling a story. They did do right with adapting a book to TV... that will help with following along (assuming you read the books first).

That's an...interesting...opinion. Not one most believe, however. Serialized narratives of the sort we've been enjoying for years are precisely why this is called the "golden era of television". The stories are deep and encompassing. TV actors used to be second-rate compared to film, but no longer. Serialized TV narratives allow much longer, slower, deeper story-telling that cannot be completed in a two-hour set block. This became obvious way back w/ the Sopranos and hasn't stopped.

As for 30-minute increments, these are usually comedies and can operate just fine.

As for waiting a week between episode, firstly that isn't even true on some of the major services (Netflix, Amazon), or with back catalogs that are what is called "online". Lastly, for shows that do post once a week, they pose little trouble to being enjoyable narratives. See the first 5 seasons of Game of Thrones, etc. Somehow our adult minds are able to be satisfied despite the wait.

I’m 43 years old... I don’t watch television. My nieces and nephews (3 in high school and 1 in college) watch almost no TV... even though they all have TVs in their rooms. They spend all their time on their phones, watching YouTube, TickTok, games etc. they do have Netflix...

FYI
“In the Nielsen ratings for 2018-19, the broadcast networks averaged 28.5 million viewers in primetime, a decline of 7.3 million viewers (20 percent) since 2014-15. The drop-off among adults 18-49 was steeper, falling 35 percent to a 6.2 rating.Sep 21, 2019”

The sports viewership is doing very well, but Apple has no piece of that pie.

I don’t know where you’re getting this is “the golden age” of television... until you’re referring to number of channels.