Apple has handed out an early season six renewal for Slow Horses, the comedic spy drama starring Gary Oldman.
The news comes on the heels of the season four finale that released Oct. 9 on Apple TV+, and a season five renewal announced early this year.
The forthcoming fifth season, following the season four ending, will see the Slow Horses on the run as Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge.
Slow Horses, based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron, follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 known un-affectionately as Slough House. The ensemble cast also includes Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Samuel West, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Ruth Bradley, Tom Brooke, Joanna Scanlan and Jonathan Pryce. Hugo Weaving joined the cast as an antagonist in season four.
Oscar winner Oldman stars as the irascible Jackson Lamb.
“Audiences around the world have fallen in love with the Slow Horses, and I’m delighted that Gary Oldman will be leading this star-studded cast on another acerbic and action-packed adventure,” Jay Hunt, creative director of Europe for Apple TV+, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Slow Horses hails from producers See-Saw Films and is executive produced by Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Julian Stevens, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Adam Randall, Gail Mutrux, Douglas Urbanski and Oldman.
Season six will be adapted for television by co-executive producer Gaby Chiappe, with Adam Randall returning to direct. The first four seasons of Slow Horses stream on Apple TV+; Apple does not release any viewership data for its series.
Slow Horses earned its first Emmy nominations for season three in 2024, where it went into the show nominated for nine awards, including best drama series and best lead actor for Oldman. Writer-showrunner Will Smith took home the award for best writing for a drama series.
When speaking ahead of season four’s release, Smith told The Hollywood Reporter that the plan is to bring all nine books in the Slough House series to the screen.
“I think Mick is writing the ninth now, but we’ll have to see what happens,” said Smith. “Depends on what Apple wants and what the appetite is, but I definitely have the kind of leave-them-wanting-more rather than the outstay-your-welcome instinct … But the world of the show is there to be mined. Mick has written a terrific book called The Secret Hours, which is a sort of sidebar book that fills in the backstory of Lamb, and he brings in all these other existing characters. It’s a wonderful book that I think there’s definitely an opportunity to do a shorter-run [series] or a film or something. I know Gary wants to keep going for as long as he’s asked. He loves playing the character.”
