Emma Thompson in 'Down Cemetery Road.' Apple TV Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text For a series about misfit intelligence operatives doggedly refusing to live up to even the lowest level of their potential, Apple TV's Slow Horses is remarkably self-actualized. Every year, come rain or shine or strike or global cataclysm, Slow Horses delivers a new season. Each season thus far has been six episodes, with those episodes usually averaging 45 minutes, durations that have yet to feel too long or too short. Seasons have dealt with weighty, headline-ripping topics and they've killed off several beloved characters, but Will Smith and his creative team have always known the precise quantity of humor necessary to protect Slow Horses from ever being either ponderous or frivolous. Related Stories TV Robin Wright Didn't Expect Such a Split Reaction to 'The Girlfriend' Ending News Jon Stewart, Emma Thompson, Christopher Guest Talks Added to New Yorker Festival Lineup (Exclusive) Down Cemetery Road The Bottom Line Unpolished but superbly acted. Airdate: Wednesday, October 29 (Apple TV)Cast: Emma Thompson, Ruth Wilson, Fehinti Balogun, Adeel Akhtar, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Darren BoydCreator: Morwenna Banks Slow Horses isn't always one of my favorite shows - the fungibility of its storylines, contributing to a sense of interchangeability of seasons, is both a feature and a bug - but if you asked me for a prototypical example of a TV show that knows precisely what it wants to be, Slow Horses would be my answer. That's a high (and specific) bar, and if Apple TV's Down Cemetery Road wasn't based on a novel series from Slow Horses author Mick Herron, wasn't adapted for TV by Slow Horses veteran Morwenna Banks and didn't, in spots, feel an awful lot like Slow Horses, I wouldn't make the comparison at all. In its first season, Down Cemetery Road struggles with exactly the structural elements that seemed to come so naturally for Slow Horses. At eight episodes, most running over 50 minutes, Down Cemetery Road feels consistently padded and, especially in its first half, the momentum meanders in frustrating ways. The comedy, often quite broad, is occasionally jarringly incongruous, and the dramatic stakes of the season-long arc sometimes vanish entirely. There's probably a great six-episode season hiding within this opening run, but it isn't the version of the show that's finally airing. The flaws in Down Cemetery Road are not insignificant. But when you have a show built around the perfectly cast Emma Thompson, instantly whetting appetites for adaptations of the next three Herron-penned Zoë Boehm mysteries, and a top-notch supporting ensemble led by Ruth Wilson and breakout Fehinti Balogun, the flaws become minor irritants and not dealbreakers. (Actually, Wilson isn't really part of the "supporting" cast. She's more like the star, even if the ongoing series of books continues following Thompson's Boehm and not Wilson's Sarah Tucker.) Sarah is an Oxford-based art restorationist, living largely in the shadow of her dithering husband Mark (Tom Riley), a mid-level financier more interested in his professional mobility than paying attention to whether his wife is personally fulfilled. Mark expects Sarah to play perfect wife and hostess for a potentially large client, the insufferable Gerard (Tom Goodman-Hill), and she dutifully orchestrates a small and awkward dinner party that's upended when a neighboring house explodes. Authorities say "gas leak," as they tend to. But Sarah is fixated on the disaster, in which two people were killed and a small girl was hospitalized and then vanishes. Self-conscious about her own childlessness, Sarah latches onto a single, earlier meeting with the girl and her now-deceased mother, and when she accidentally stumbles into a private investigator's office she sees the chance to get to the bottom of things. The investigator whose name is on the door is Joe Silverman (Adam Godley, excellent in a brief role), but it instantly becomes clear that the brains of the operation is Joe's estranged wife, brash and brassy Zoë, with her spiky silver hair and snazzy leather jackets and no interest in the job's more social aspects. Sarah is in way, way over her head. The explosion and the girl's disappearance are tied to an elaborate and confusing conspiracy that involves a shady, unnamed government agent (Darren Boyd); his bumbling underling (Adeel Akhtar's Hamza); a menacing assassin named Amos (Balogun); and a mysterious man (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, plagued by an underwritten role) who keeps popping up in Sarah's life with ambiguous intent. What follows is an odd road trip across the U.K. with some folks trying to rescue the girl and unravel the conspiracy, and the bad guys trying to, um, keep those things from happening. A lot of w