Like a good many other people it seems, I am absolutely hooked on Apple TV’s new spy drama Slow Horses. It is based on a series of novels by the author Mick Herron and follows the story of a team of disgraced British intelligence officers who are sent to an unglamorous department where they are tasked with investigating low-level cases. The plots are interesting and the acting is absolutely first class, with heavyweights Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott-Thomas anchoring a terrific ensemble cast. If you want a believable and interesting spy drama to get immersed in, check it out!
Amy B. Zener, the author of Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence calls this kind of drama “spytainment”. Now, I like spytainment as much as the next person, but of course I always find myself questioning how much of it is real because I suspect that the real world of the spy is mundane surveillance, rather than jumping out of airplanes or racing around on motorbikes, and much of the work is about joining up the dots rather than uncovering secrets.
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