The Trailer for 'Prime Target' Makes Math Thrilling
Leo Woodall in "Prime Target"
(Photo: Apple TV+)
Mathematics isn't a subject that most people tend to view as all that exciting. (Though Tom Stoppard devotees who love Arcadia specifically will almost certainly — and rightly! — argue otherwise. However, Apple TV+ is banking on the power of prime numbers in its latest British thriller, Prime Target, a tale of digital hacking and espionage starring Leo Woodall (One Day) and Quintessa Swindell (Black Adam).
The series follows the story of Edward Brooks (Woodall), a recent maths graduate who may have found a pattern in the distribution of prime numbers that holds the key to unlocking every computer in the world. For those of you who (like yours truly) did not do great in math class, here is a refresher: Prime numbers are integers only divisible by one and themselves. The Greek philosopher Euclid hypothesized that there is an infinite number of prime numbers, and many theorists today still debate precisely how many prime numbers exist and how they're distributed among the remaining whole numbers.
While the trailer for Prime Target doesn't explicitly mention this, one has to assume young Edward has somehow proven the Riemann Hypothesis. This one-hundred-and-sixty-year-old theory still stumps mathematicians today. In doing so, he has made himself a target for many unsavory types who want to control the information infrastructure to which this solution would likely give them access.
To save his skin, he'll have to work with the NSA agent (Swindell) who's been secretly spying on him in the hopes of getting to the truth of what's happening — and staying alive long enough to find out.
Here's the series synopsis.
Prime Target features a brilliant young math postgraduate, Edward Brooks, who is 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, an NSA agent who’s been tasked with watching and reporting on mathematicians’ behavior. Together, they start to unravel the troubling conspiracy Edward is at the heart of.
Alongside Woodall and Swindell, the series also stars Stephen Rea (The English), David Morrissey (Sherwood), Martha Plimpton (The Regime), Sidse Babett Knudsen (Roadkill), Jason Flemyng (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Harry Lloyd (The Lost King), Ali Suliman (Arthur the King), Fra Fee (Lost Boys & Fairies), Safiya Zamil (Ted Lasso), and Joseph Mydell (The Castaways).
Prime Target is created and written by Steve Thompson (Sherlock), with all eight episodes directed by Brady Hood (Great Expectations).
The series is produced for Apple TV+ by New Regency and Ridley Scott's (Napoleon) Scott Free Productions. Thompson and Hood are also both executive producers alongside Ed Rubin, Beth Pattinson, Emma Broughton, Yariv Milchan, Arnon Milchan, and Michael Schaefer for New Regency, with Marina Brackenbury and David W. Zucker for Scott Free Productions.
Prime Target will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on January 22, 2025, with the first two episodes, followed by one episode weekly every Wednesday through March 5.
