Making people wait for 'Slow Horses' episodes 'was Apple's decision' but it's working

By Oliver Haslam
published

Apple Tv Slow Horses Sneak Peek
Apple Tv Slow Horses Sneak Peek (Image credit: Apple TV+)

What you need to know

  • Apple TV+ show Slow Horses launched with two episodes and has been releasing new ones weekly.
  • Director James Hawes says the weekly schedule was Apple's idea.
  • People have been calling Hawes to ask why they have to wait for a new episode.

If you've been sucked into the world of Slow Horses on Apple TV+ but find yourself wishing you could binge-watch it, you can blame Apple. That's according to Director James Hawes — and he'd probably know.

The gritty Apple TV+ show burst onto the scene on April1 with the first two episodes made available immediately. But after watching those, eager viewers were left having to wait a week for the next episode. And a week after that, and so on. It's something that Apple TV+ has done before but it's still an oddity in a world where the likes of Netflix tend to make everything available on day one. And people aren't happy.

Those people, Deadline reports, should blame Apple. Including the people that have been calling Hawes to complain!

Apple TV's six-part mini-series Slow Horses, adapted from the novels of the same name by Mick Herron, landed on 1 April with a one-two punch and promptly kept viewers waiting, having decided to parse out the remaining four episodes out on a weekly basis. "It was Apple's decision," says director James Hawes. "But if the response I've had is anything to go by, the anticipation it has created is fantastic. I've got people ringing me up to say, 'Why are you doing this? I wanted to finish it over the weekend!' The greatest compliment you could have is that people are demanding more—and now."

The show, starring Gary Oldman and based on the book by the same name by Mick Herron, is already proving popular. There's no doubt that the weekly releases help to build anticipation and continue to keep attention on a show that might otherwise have lost it after a big initial flurry. But boy, would I rather not have to wait a week to find out what's going to happen next!

If you want to enjoy Slow Horses in style, be sure to check out our list of the best Apple TV deals on the market today.

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Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

3 Comments
  • Terrible decision. I usually wait for all episodes to drop and have ended up losing interest in several Apple TV+ shows by the time that happened. I’ll probably stick it out for Slow Horses—unless I just read the book instead—purchased it last week out of frustration with the weekly content drops. I definitely will wait to binge Part 2 (the second six episodes). The whole point of streaming is that you pay to eliminate the frustration of broadcast TV. What were you thinking AAPL?
  • Normally, I don’t mind the weekly episodes (it makes Ted Lasso and For All Mankind last longer). My primary complaint about Slow Horses is it is the most disappointing Apple series since Dickinson. I had been really looking forward to this one from the trailer, but it’s so far fetched as to be off putting. I’ll happily suspend some disbelief for sci-fi, but spy thrillers that are advertised as “gritty” (as opposed to spy fantasy like James Bond) need to have some rational basis in reality or the whole “gritty” atmosphere is blown. I’m probably going to try episode 3, but the show is on a short leash.
  • A bad decision for sure, but personally, I gave up on this show towards the middle of the first episode. It's fabulous acting, fabulous mis en scene, costumes, direction, etc. and ... ... a patently *ridiculous* story. I just couldn't stomach it. It's reactionary BS written by people who are clearly stuck in the past. The momment early on when a comedy club clears out because someone told a "religious joke" was just silly and unbelievable. By the time we get to the "England First" group who mimick Al Quaida, I thought we had travelled back in time to the early 2000's. It's like it was written by Boris Johnson's Dad. Unbelievable nonsense from start to finish. The only good part was Gary Oldman's flatulence.