It's one of life's greatest blessings that Apple TV+ was the one to adapt the Slough House series of espionage novels from Mick Herron, as with the stewardship of the quality-focussed streamer, a big-enough budget that enables the construction of a talented cast and crew, and a commitment to the future to boot, we're now four seasons deep into what is frequently one of the best shows on television, period.
The near future will see the release of a fifth season of Slow Horses, a season that has already been filmed (check out the trailer here), but despite a boatload of episodes already in the wild, we are still quite in the dark about Gary Oldman's leading character of the grubby yet brilliant Jackson Lamb. With such success to Slow Horses' name, many have wondered if it's time for a prequel series to dispel a lot of these mysteries, but thankfully author Herron and showrunner Will Smith don't see this in the future.
Speaking with TheWrap, Smith talked about a prequel series and how fans probably aren't looking for something similar:
"I don't think people would want that. Early on, Mick and I used to joke about that, and he used to be quite vehemently against it. And for exactly the reasons you say: It's the fascination with Lamb.
"There are parallels with other major characters in fiction and film and TV, where they have delved into the background and it does lose some of the magic. You think, "I don't really want the explanation, because I quite like the mystery and the enigma. I like the not-knowing." And it loses something to explain it.
"But then Mick has then written a brilliant book called "The Secret Hours,"where he does go back into post-war Berlin with Lamb and Molly. It's a fantastic book as it goes between the two timelines. And he brings in some Slow Horses in a really fun, tangential way. So that could be a really interesting one to do. It's not really a young Lamb, but he's still the essence of Lamb.
"But, like you say, it's tricky. You don't want to spoil the magic of what the hell happened to him. You just [wonder], "What made you this way, Lamb?" That's the question that is on everyone's mind. And yeah, would it be the wrong thing to answer that?"
While this prequel seemingly won't be happening, TheWrap did ask how they'd go about presenting a young Lamb and if they'd use de-ageing technology with Oldman.
"I don't think you could cast a different actor. You just can't. Gary is Lamb, that's it. I'm talking completely out of turn here, it's not anything that's happening.
"But yes, I think Gary is just such a supreme actor. I'd love to see how Gary handled the challenge of playing a de-aged Lamb, which hopefully the technology be there that he could do it, and how he would physically approach that, and how he would think. I'd love to hear that or explore that, but it's nothing that's actually happening."
Do you agree with this or would you like to see a Slow Horses prequel series?