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Slow Horses: BBC Turned Down Series Because Of Course They Did

Slow Horses was originally turned down by the BBC before Jay Hunt greenlit the series at Apple TV+ and reaped the acclaim and awards for it.

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Slow Horses is one of the best shows on TV right now and one of the best spy series out there, but guess what? Apple TV+ was turned down by the BBC, which in this day and age, is not surprising at all. Apple TV Europe boss and BFI chair Jay Hunt revealed this during a rare public Q&A hosted by The Traitors U.K. presenter Claudia Winkleman during the BFI London Film Festival, where she discussed her career in the U.K. public. She said that Slow Horses, now one of AppleTV+'s biggest U.K. hits that have since gone on to win BAFTA and Emmy awards, was considered a risky investment by the BBC, who turned it down only for Apple TV+ to greenlight it instead. Here's that picture of Gary Oldman as Slow Horses' antihero spymaster Jackson Lamb with an ice cream cone for you to look at as you meditate on that.

Slow Horses Season 3 Premieres on Apple TV+ on December 1st
Gary Oldman in "Slow Horses": Apple TV

"I think you have to take risks," said Hunt, as reported by Variety. "It's interesting. Slow Horses is a very good example where it was passed on by the BBC. I think one of the reasons that people struggle with shows like that is they've got a hybrid tone. So people go, is that show a comedy? Is that show a drama? And so, in a weird way, that represents risk."

"I think finding those things, being confident we could hone them to the quality of execution that we've seen, and again, working with exceptional teams, exceptional writers, exceptional directors, I think it's a slate which showcases the very best of British creativity, which is everything I hoped for in this job."

"We've invested millions and millions of pounds in British creativity," Hunt said. "And as someone who has built their career in this market and has actively chosen to stay in this market, working somewhere where we've given effects designers the challenge of saying, by the way, can you bring alive the world of 66 million years ago? Or to an extraordinary production designer saying to them on, you know, Slow Horses, I want you to build Slough House with an attention to detail, which is, frankly, jaw-dropping, to be able to come in and say, let's give people a chance to do that and they can do that in this market — it's not a brain drain, they don't have to leave and go and work somewhere else to do that — that's something I'm really proud of."

To some of us, it's not surprising that the BBC failed to see the appeal of Slow Horses despite it being the most British approach to the spy genre: quirky, ironic, darkly satirical, and with a critical eye. The BBC, in recent years, has become increasingly conservative and risk-averse in its choice of projects where a drama that's not another generic angst-ridden cop thriller would not have gotten a look. Hunt represents the original ethos of BBC and British television executives and producers who believe in projects that take risks and went to different places, having commissioned the hit comedy Derry Girls when she was at Channel 4 and then Slow Horses when she moved to Apple TV, an American-owned streamer that now gets to collect the critical praise and awards from it. "Public service is a defining part of who I am. It matters massively to me," she explained. "I think great film and television can change the world."

Slow Horses is streaming on Apple TV+.

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Adi TantimedhAbout Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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