Contains minor plot speculation. Most recent comments are at the top. Other coverage of Slow Horses and the Slough House novels, standalones and short stories can be found here.

Sunday 13 September

Good afternoon.

Some lucky, lucky people have seen series 6 now and have written about it. So here are links to the first reviews. MANY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

We start our coverage with the excellent podcast, Barbican Station, which has just dropped a preview of the new series. There is, as ever, astute insight, though it appears to have been recorded before the most recent trailer in which Sid’s return was confirmed. It’s available on many podcast platforms. Here’s the link to Apple Podcasts. And here’s the one for Spotify.

Collider tells us about a few pairings for our slow horses and guests as they hunt down the bad guys.

Ben Dowell in The Times (paywall) says we’re in for a treat and this might be the best series yet.

In Radio Times David Brown gives four stars out of five but gives two MAJOR SPOILERS. First, we won’t meet Lech Wicinski who appears in both books, and the Epstein-esque scandal in Joe Country has been dialled down. (Brown says it’s been ‘nixed’ but that doesn’t really make sense.)

Nicole Gallucci tells Decider readers that new show runner Gaby Chiappe ‘does Slow Horses justice, maintaining its quintessential pacing, tone and heart while simultaneously upping the ante’.

TV Insider go the extra mile. At first I’m expecting a fairly bland preview but then – wow – a fairly lengthy interview with Gary Oldman (one of the many he gave while in Edinburgh). Meredith Jacobs has also spoken with Gaby Chiappe who gives some insight into the River/Frank Harkness dynamic.

I know we have only four days to go, but if you can’t wait to watch the first five minutes of the new series and find out why Sid Baker’s not the only returning character, head over to Town and Country who have the first scene (together with more quotes from Gaby Chiappe, reported by Emily Burack).

Fandomwire’s Alan French observes that the agents seeking out our horses are a ‘ghost of [Diana Taverner’s] making’. He also notices ‘ineptitude’ among the horses and we should hope so too.

Finally for today, series 6 has notched up a perfect 100% tomatometer score (as of now) on Rotten Tomatoes.

More as we find it…

Sunday 30 August

Good morning.

We kick off today with a short message from Gary Oldman. It’s been out for a couple of weeks but I came across it only today, and then watched it four times:

A few interviews with or articles about actors are now emerging:

Oldman himself appeared at the Edinburgh TV Festival and his phrase that it’s a ‘struggle and fight’ to keep the Slow Horses production lines running has made it into a number of articles. This one, from Deadline, suggests that he truly trusts the cast and producers around him. And this one, from Screen Rant, says that series 7 has finished filming and series 8 is in production. Since we assume that series 8 will adapt novel 9, Clown Town, and Mick Herron is working on a non-Slough House project, it feels like the producers will be scrabbling around for new material for series 9. The prospect of some of the rich content in some of the novellas and stand-alone novels making its way onto the small screen feels enticing.

Jack Lowden’s featured in an odd article on TV Line which focuses on his career with some interesting quotes but has a slight whiff of AI generation.

Variety interview Lowden himself and it’s worth a read.

A treat that relates to series 5: if you, like Cafethinking, wanted to visit the bar in which Jackson Lamb rallies the troops insults the slow horses, you’ll be disappointed. It’s a set. But what a set! Production designer Choi Ho Man told The Wrap how they did it.

Here’s an article from TV Insider that brings us up to date with the Sid-uation (sorry). It’s really a recap of what happened to her in the first series.

Finally, a poll! CBR have a poll with three questions about what fans are looking forward to. Have your say here.

Monday 24 August

Good evening. People have asked: why a new show runner? The short answer is that the production schedule, with multiple seasons being worked on at once, caught up with Will Smith. It’s perhaps no surprise that the seventh series will see another show runner change, with Ben Vanstone at the helm.

I found rather a good interview with Will Smith on The Wrap: it’s from October last year so is hardly news but is well worth a read if you missed it. Here it is.

Sunday 23 August

Slow Horses, the Apple TV adaptations of the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron, is back for its sixth season. New episodes will drop every Wednesday, from 16 September to 21 October. We’re expecting things to be a little different this time round: two novels are covered (and we discuss the implications below) and there’s a new show runner, with Gaby Chiappe replacing Will Smith. Chiappe has writing credits including Vera and Shetland and her screenplay for Their Finest scooped a couple of award nominations.

The two novels coming to the small screen are Joe Country and Slough House and both have featured on this blog (all Slow Horses and Slough House coverage can be found here). And although Olivia Cooke’s return as Sid Baker has sparked the press’s attention, Sid does appear in Slough House. It was never nailed on that she would return, though – not only is Cooke busy with other projects, there are other changes that have arisen probably as a result of talent availability and also the subject matter of Joe Country in particular that makes it less easy to adapt.

Much of what follows is speculation based on knowledge of the novels, a few views of the trailer and information currently available on IMDb. Full cast credits for all six episodes are not up there yet.

Joe Country is a sprawling road trip – ‘bleak, angry, funny’. When Min Harper’s son goes missing, Louisa and Emma drive to Wales to track him down. River, Coe and Shirley follow. The five deal with a scandal involving the royals, Peter Judd and River’s father, Frank Harkness. Apple TV may be less likely than Herron to want to get involved in a royal scandal – plus, Joe Country may be strong on action but many pages are set inside the characters’ heads. It’s a brilliant read but one which doesn’t obviously fill six episodes. IMDb doesn’t suggest a new Harper character, but indicates that Lenny Rush, who plays Reece Nesmith, a character potentially similar in age to Min Jr, will be seen in episodes 2 and 3. And the characters who die in Joe Country aren’t in the IMDb cast for episode 4. That said, one of the official pics shows Nesmith with Roddy Ho in a pinball arcade rather than in a Welsh forest so your guess is as good as mine.

Slough House explores what happens after Diana Taverner gets played by Peter Judd, with deadly consequences for slow horses past and present. Watching the trailer, it looks as though this is the storyline that sees Louisa return to the series rather than the Wales trip. We’ll also see the return of Struan Loy.

I’ll update this post with more news and perhaps speculation as we get it.