Apple TV+ Keeps 'Slow Horses' Running with a Season 6 Renewal

Apple TV+ continues to ride the success of Slow Horses, which has been commissioned to trot out to a six-episode Season 6 less than a week after the Season 4 finale. (Season 5 was greenlit in January 2024, a few days after the conclusion of Season 3.) Based on the Mick Herron thrillers, The Slough House Series, comprised of nine novels and five short stories, Season 6 will be the first to combine novels after the first five seasons, each of which adapted the first five full-length best sellers. Seasons 1 through 4 covered Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, and Spook Street; the forthcoming Season 5 will cover the events from London Rules.  

Season 6, on the other hand, will be a mashup of 2019’s Joe Country and 2021’s Slough House, leaving only 2022’s Bad Actors and the forthcoming Clown Town, due out in 2025, for future seasons to cover. Apple TV+ did not call Season 6 “the final season,” nor did it hint that the show may end soon. However, with the commissioning of the Slow Horses “companion” series Down Cemetary Road, it’s clear that Apple sees the end of the road for its most popular show and is prepping a replacement ahead of the original series coming to an end.

Apple TV+’s Jay Hunt said in the press release, “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.” Oldman (Parthenope) leads the cast as Jackson Lamb, the head of Slough House, with Jack Lowden (The Gold) as River Cartwright and Kristen Scott Thomas (Gosford Park) as Diana Taverner, rounding out the center trio who keep the outcasts limping along.

Here's the Slow Horses synopsis for Season 6:

Slow Horses is a darkly humorous espionage drama that follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 known un-affectionately as Slough House, run by Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but cantankerous leader of the spies who end up in Slough House due to their career-ending mistakes and who frequently find themselves blundering around the smoke and mirrors of the espionage world. Season 6 sees the Slow Horses on the run as Diana Taverner embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge.

Oldman, Lowden, and Scott Thomas return for Season 6 alongside long-time series regulars Saskia Reeves (Roadkill) as Catherine Standish, Rosalind Eleazar (The Personal History of David Copperfield) as Louisa Guy, Christopher Chung (Waterloo Road) as Roddy Ho, Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Wolf Hall) as Shirley Dander, and Jonathan Pryce (The Crown) as David Cartwright. Samuel West (All Creatures Great & Small) returns as Home Secretary Peter Judd after sitting out Season 4 and 5, while Season 4's new additions to the cast Joanna Scanlan (The Larkins) as Moira Tregorian, Ruth Bradley (Guilt) as Emma Flyte, and Tom Brooke (Bodyguard) as J.K. Coe all return.

Gaby Chiappe, who takes over from Slow Horses' longtime lead writer, Will Smith, is adapting Season 6 for television. Season 4 director Adam Randall returns to helm all episodes of Season 6. Chiappe, Randall, and Oldman are listed as executive producers, alongside Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Julian Stevens, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gail Mutrux, and Douglas Urbanski.

Slow Horses Seasons 1 through 4 are streaming on Apple TV+; Season 5 is expected in 2025, with Season 6 to follow in due course.