Dan Kois in Slate:
The central gag of Slough House, the organization, is that the worst spies in London have been thrown together in one building and punished with terrible, useless jobs. When MI5 rookie River Cartwright is sent to Slough House, for example, he’s put to work sorting through garbage he steals from bins. When he asks Jackson Lamb, his boss, what he’s meant to be looking for, Lamb cracks, “The remnants of a once promising career.”
The central gag of Slow Horses, the Apple TV+ series, is the exact opposite. On Slow Horses, some of most accomplished actors in the U.K. are thrown together on one show and rewarded with delightful jobs at which they effortlessly excel. For viewers of a certain age, the show can sometimes resemble a kind of nature preserve for the beloved British actors of our youths. Here the thespians who once thrilled us in subtle, complex roles get to gleefully chew the scenery. There are a lot of reasons to love Slow Horses—its gimcrack plotting, its mix of action and comedy, its willingness to kill characters off—but I love it most because, on it, some of my favorite performers are clearly having the times of their lives. In Season 4, newly premiered on Apple TV+, one more great name gets added to the list.
More here.
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