SLOW HORSES, S5
If you were to ask people to name an Apple TV show, the chances are that those who know the streaming service's output would probably say 'Ted Lasso' or 'Slow Horses'.
Outside of the football sitcom, the London spy series is the other jewel in Apple TV's crown - having mopped up BAFTA, Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominations since first landing on our screens on April Fool's Day, 2022.
Critics adore the espionage series which has built up a cult following around the world with its cynical humour and rebellious spirit.
In a big investment in English screenwriter Will Smith's adaptation of Mick Herron's spy novels, the producers have for some years shot its series back to back.
This ensures that as soon as one series airs, the next is already in the can and fans don't have to wait more than a year for the next instalment.
2025's story begins in typical 'Slow Horses' fashion with a big action set piece.
In this case, it occurs on a working class London housing estate against the backdrop of a mayoral election where Nick Mohammed's centrist Zafar Jaffrey is facing the challenge of Christopher Villiers' right wing populist Dennis Gimball.
As shoppers go about their business in a square on the Abbotsfield housing estate, Edward Davis' Rob Trew exits his flat and sits on a bench watching a canvasser for Jaffrey who tries to engage him in conversation.
Rising from the bench, he produces an assault rifle, shoots him and massacres 10 other people before being picked off by a sniper's bullet from an elevated position.
After gunning Trew down, the sniper flees in a white van which almost mows down Christopher Chung's obnoxious Slow Horse Roddy Ho in central London on his way into work.
Ho is fortunately saved by his Slough House colleague Aimee-Ffion Edwards' Shirley Dander as he listens to Robert Palmer on his headphones but he doesn't thank her, moaning instead about her breaking his headphones.
Shirley is convinced the driver of the vehicle intended to hit Roddy but none of her fellow MI5 rejects in Slough House take her theory seriously, with the exception of Saskia Reeves' office administrator Catherine Standish.
Over in The Park, the Abbottsfield massacre has sent shockwaves through MI5, with James Callis' First Desk director Claude Whelan and his deputy Kristin Scott Thomas's Diana Taverner caught off guard by the incident.
Sending Ruth Bradley's head of security Emma Flyte to the scene of the atrocity, she figures out that the gunman did
not turn the gun on himself, as Metropolitan Police officers believe, but was in fact picked off by a sniper from a neighbouring tower block.
She discovers a bullet case in the tower block, while an examination of Trew's flat reveals him to be a follower of Gimball which is a major security headache for the Park as a tetchy election campaign enters the final furlong.
Back at Slough House, a party is being thrown for Rosalind Eleazar's Louisa Guy who is taking a six month sabbatical.
Much to his disappointment, Louisa reveals to Jack Lowden's River Cartwright she intends never to return.
The party breaks up, though, barely after it has begun, with River annoying Shirley after he dismisses her theory about the van as the rantings of a colleague suffering PTSD.
Shirley is fuming as she is still coming to terms with the gunning down of her close colleague Marcus in Slough House at the end of Series Four.
As the gang heads home, she decides to tail Roddy because she has fears for his safety.
Shirley ends up being followed, though, by Standish because she has fears for Shirley's safety.
Standish and Shirley are shocked to discover Roddy has a rather glamorous looking girlfriend, Hiba Bennani's Tara and they follow them both to a nightclub.
With Standish unable to go inside because she would look out of place and also because of her history with alcoholism, she rings River and persuades him to join Shirley there.
When Shirley overreacts to a perceived threat to Roddy on the dancefloor, she and River clash in the club after he discovers she is carrying a bag of coke.
Evading nightclub security as Roddy leaves with Tara in a taxi, Shirley steals a fast food delivery bike and follows them to his flat.
Desperate to impress his girlfriend, Ho nevertheless fails to persuade Tara to come inside his flat.
Waiting for him there, though, is Gary Oldman's Slough House boss Jackson Lamb who has started to suspect that Shirley might be right after learning Ho has a girlfriend.
An attempt is indeed made on Roddy's life when an assassin breaks into his flat but the attacker is confronted by Lamb who pours bleach into his eyes and knocks him over a balcony.
As the assailant hobbles to freedom with Shirley in pursuit, Ho's flat is sprayed with gunfire by the occupants of the white van involved in the Abbotsfield shootings.
The attacker escapes in the van after a brawl with Shirley who stabs him in the leg with a syringe.
Meanwhile Lamb takes Ho to a plush central London hotel where the Slow Horses gather and try and work out who is targeting Roddy before the Park sends its security team, The Dogs to question him.
Unbeknown to everyone, the attackers are Libyan dissidents whose leader, Monty Ben's Farouk ruthlessly dispatches his wounded colleague and burns his body.
Will the Slow Horses work out who the gang that is targeting Ho?
Is Tara is everything she seems?
What will the gang do on UK soil and what will it mean for the election?
And will the Slow Horses be allowed by Whelan, Taverner and Flyte to foil the Libyan gang?
In June, 'Slow Horses' showrunner Will Smith announced Series Five would be his last in charge of the show.
Smith is handing over the baton to Gaby Chiappe, a screenwriter who is probably best known for her work on the Miss World feminist protest comedy movie 'Misbehaviour'.
Armed with this knowledge, there's no doubt that there's a changing of the guard feel to this series, with the show not quite firing on all cylinders.
That's not to say Series Five is a flop or that it's not any fun.
It's just the writing feels more tired than previous series and it's definitely not up to the standards of previous series.
Part of the problem is that some of the characters feel like they're in a state of flux.
With his grandfather Jonathan Pryce's MI5 legend David Cartwright sliding further into dementia and Louisa leaving, River seems more bitter, jaded and lost.
There's a suspicion he's also nursing unresolved emotional wounds from the revelations in Series Four about his father and he certainly cuts a less dynamic figure than before.
Shirley is also full of rage following the death of Marcus and is flirting with drugs again.
Standish hasn't really progressed and remains a maternal figure in the office, while Louisa barely features.
Meanwhile Tom Brooke's permanently hooded JK Coe, while clearly intelligent, is a distant, unpredictable and enigmatic figure who amuses but is hard to warm to.
Ho is less of a peripheral figure this time round but he's even more obnoxious and arrogant than before to the point of being delusional.
And that means he doesn't quite engage our sympathies as other characters would.
As a result, a lot falls on Jackson Lamb's shoulders, with Smith and his fellow screenwriters Sean Gray and Edward Docx leaning heavily on the MI5 rebel's cynicism, his disdain for authority and his poor personal hygiene for laughs.
All of this is fine but the success of previous series of 'Slow Horses' has been as much about River's eagerness to prove himself as it has been about Jackson sticking two fingers up to authority.
With the mix not quite right, Series Five feels like one of those moments where the show could either lose its way or benefit from the new beginning that Chiappe will offer.
Nevertheless, there's still a lot of fun to be had.
Oldman remains the show's strongest card, sniping, slurping and farting his way through proceedings as Lamb runs rings around his enemies and superiors.
Thomas is in fine form as the ruthless and resourceful Taverner who patiently waits for her inept boss to screw up.
Callis amuses as that incompetent boss Whelan, the MI5 chief who has been promoted way over his head and is desperately trying to assert authority.
Samuel West makes a welcome return as the former Tory minister, Peter Judd who has now become a dodgy businessman.
Nick Mohammed and Christopher Villiers have fun as rival candidates in the mayoral race, while Victoria Hamilton appears as the populist candidate's odious, bullying wife Dodie Gimball who happens to be a tabloid columnist.
Bennani, Ben, Fady Elsayed and Ahmed Elmusrati are good value as the Libyan gang, while Bradley and Cherelle Skeete relish their roles as members of The Dogs.
Unfortunately David Cartwright's story arc is such that it means Pryce is condemned to an increasingly peripheral role.
And while the absence of Eleazar after the first episode feels like a big loss, Reeves, Edwards and Brooke do a decent job.
You find yourself hoping, though, that Chiappe can find some fresh ingredients in the next series for River and these characters to thrive.
Nevertheless the show remains handsomely directed by Saul Metzstein and there's one moment of black comedy involving a pot of paint that reminds you just how ingeniously funny 'Slow Horses' can be.
After the energy of previous series, Series 5 unfortunately shows signs of fatigue.
Indeed many of the action sequences feel out of puff and it's as if the show has gone on Jackson Lamb's diet of fags and fried food.
Under new leadership, that can be rectified and hopefully we will be seeing Lowden sprinting in a panic on the streets of London again as River tries to prevent a massacre.
This is instantly preferable to him moping around the city.
Indeed, hopefully everyone will be in much better form in the next series because it would be a crying shame if a show that has been great for four series and has taken a slight dip cannot recover its mojo.
(Series Five of 'Slow Horses' was made available for streaming on Apple TV between September 24-October 29, 2025)
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