One of Apple TV+’s most prolific and acclaimed original series is Slow Horses, which explores the underdog side of the British intelligence community. With Slow Horses premiering its fourth season in 2024, named Spook Street, here’s if the hit show is actually based on a true story.
What Is Slow Horses Based On?
Slow Horses is not based on a true story, instead adapting the Slough House novel series by author Mick Herron, with each season adapting a different novel in Herron’s long-running series. As such, Slough House, the fan-favorite intelligence operatives that work out of it, and the various missions that the characters undertake are all completely fictional creations of Herron. Prior to writing the Slough House series, Herron was primarily known for writing crime novels, most notably a series starring private investigator Zoë Boehm before publishing the first Slough House novel in 2010.
For his part, Herron has named influential British espionage novelist and former intelligence operative John le Carré as a major inspiration behind his own Slough House novels. A number of le Carré’s novels, including The Night Manager and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, have been adapted into television and film, with the latter adaptation also starring Slow Horses lead actor Gary Oldman. While these novels reflect aspects of contemporary global realpolitik and intrigue, the stories themselves aren’t directly tied to any real world incidents.
Slow Horses follows an ensemble of intelligence operatives who are disgraced in the eyes of the British government but are too valuable to let go of completely. Relegated to Slough House, a rundown organization in the forgotten corners of the intelligence community, these operatives are tasked with the most menial, thankless assignments the government can come up with. Despite its lowly status, Slough House finds itself in the middle of domestic threats around the United Kingdom that it is better equipped to handle than their more prominent counterparts.
Published: Sep 2, 2024 08:09 pm