Leo Woodall & Quintessa Swindell to Lead Apple TV+'s 'Prime Target'

Conspiracy thrillers often feel like they're a dime a dozen these days, but rarely are they about anything as seemingly mundane as math. But, Apple TV+ seems to think it can make the prospect of mathematic espionage exciting with its upcoming drama Prime Target, the story of a young maths graduate who may have solved the secret of prime numbers. (For those, like me, who barely passed math class, a prime number is an integer that is only divisible by one and itself. The Greek mathematician Euclid hypothesized that there is an infinite number of prime numbers, and many number theorists today still debate the distribution of them among all the whole numbers.) 

The streamer released a first-look image of stars Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) and Quintess Swindell (Black Adam) alongside its announcement of the eight-episode series order. Woodall, fresh off his buzzy turn in the popular Netflix romantic drama One Day, stars as Edward Brook, a math genius who is on the verge of finding a pattern in prime numbers that would allow him to essentially hack every computer in the world. Suddenly at the center of a dangerous conspiracy theory, he finds himself repeatedly thrown together with NSA agent Taylah Sanders (Swindell) --- who has been watching and reporting on his behavior --- to get to the truth. 

The series ensemble includes an array of faces who'll be familiar to Anglophiles, including Stephen Rea (Flesh and Blood), David Morrissey (The Long Shadow), Martha Plimpton (The Regime), Sidse Babett Knudsen (Roadkill), Jason Flemyng (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Harry Lloyd (The Lost King), Ali Suliman (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan), Fra Fee (Dalgliesh), Safiya Zamil (Ted Lasso), and Joseph Mydell (The Castaways). 

Here's the series' synopsis. 

Prime Target features a brilliant young math postgraduate, Edward Brooks, on the verge of a major breakthrough. If he succeeds in finding a pattern in prime numbers, he will hold the key to every computer in the world. Soon he begins to realize an unseen enemy is trying to destroy his idea before it’s even born, which throws him into the orbit of Taylah Sanders, a female NSA agent who’s been tasked with watching and reporting on the mathematician’s behavior. Together they start to unravel the troubling conspiracy Edward is at the heart of.

Created by award-winning writer Steve Thompson (Sherlock) who also serves as an executive producer, Prime Target is produced for Apple TV+ by New Regency and Ridley Scott's (Napoleon) Scott Free Productions. 

Acclaimed writer and director Brady Hood (Great Expectations) directed all eight episodes of the series. Hood also serves as an executive producer, alongside  Ed Rubin, Beth Pattinson, Emma Broughton, Yariv Milchan, Arnon Milchan, and Michael Schaefer for New Regency. Marina Brackenbury is executive producer for Scott Free Productions along with David W. Zucker and Scott. Series producer is Laura Hastings-Smith, who also serves as executive producer.

Prime Target does not currently have a release date, but will almost certainly arrive on Apple TV+ before the end of the year.