Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: Slow Horses

Slow Horses Writer/EP Will Smith Exiting Show After Series 5

Slow Horses writer/EP Will Smith, who has guided the series since its beginning, has announced he is leaving after the upcoming Series 5.

Deadline has reported that Slow Horses writer and executive producer Will Smith is leaving the hit spy series after Season 5, which will premiere this fall on Apple TV+. Smith, who is technically a showrunner, though the title does not exist in the UK TV industry, set the tone for the faithful screen adaptation of Mick Herron's darkly comic spy novels and has shepherded Slow Horses all the way from its inception. He admitted, "There were certainly some private tears" as Season 5 production came to a close. Here is a photo of Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) eating an ice cream cone to commiserate with Smith's departure.

Slow Horses follows a group of reprobate MI5 rejects and screw-ups that have been sidelined at Slough House, a forgotten outpost far from MI5's Regent's Park HQ. Led by Gary Oldman's slovenly and sardonic rogue spymaster Jackson Lamb, the 'slow horses' of Slough House prove weirdly effective, often confounding MI5's Second Desk Diana Taverner (Kristen Scott-Thomas) and, as of Season 4, its First Desk Claude Whelan (James Callis). Series regulars include Jonathan Pryce, Saskia Reeves, Jack Lowden, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Tom Brooke, and Ruth Bradley, with Kadiff Kirwan's character Marcus Longridge getting killed off in the Season 4 finale.

Smith has been nominated for the Emmy in Writing a Drama Series this year and won for Writing last year. Slow Horses has already been renewed up to Season 7. Smith has handed over the reins for Season 6 to Gaby Chiappe and Ben Vanstone for Season 7, but will be gone entirely from the production in any capacity beyond Season 5.

"I think it's a big show and it's an intense process," Smith said. "And I suppose I didn't want to lose the sense of fun of it. There's two things. One, there's the risk that you'll start to run dry or repeat, which you have to watch. And so, it's just getting ahead of that, and knowing when the right time is for you to give it over to somebody who can give it some new energy and freshness. And then it's likely that the schedule of it just becomes something that can be slightly daunting after a while. It feels like I might not be giving you my best work if I continue at this pace… I do want to emphasize, it's not in any way that I thought I'm now too good for Slow Horses. It's much more that I want to keep being good enough for Slow Horses. And I would never want it to be like, "Oh, that one wasn't quite there." It's just that risk of just pushing it too far. And I just felt, I just want to go when I know I'm still delivering my very, very best for all the people that work on the show."

Slow Horses streams on Apple TV+.

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