Okay, I've NOT got an Apple subscription but managed to see this first season for free on an offer, and well I quite enjoyed it.
What we have, is not exactly a John Le Carre thriller like "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" BUT instead we have similarly a British based spy thriller about a group of demoted & ostracised spies who find themselves caught up in a corruption web involving domestic terrorists.
The series is based off a series of books which admittedly I've no idea about, but not that impacted my viewing from what I can tell. With the weight of Kristin Scott Thomas behind the show, she helps to elevate it, however surprisingly the equally brilliant Gary Oldman has been given a role that frankly I felt underplayed his talents as an actor, with only the ending finally signalling better to come for his character. Most of the rest of the cast with all due respect are more than adequate, filling in the role as unconvincing spies trying to work their way through all the realpolitik of the civil services in the UK.
It's a decent show, but admittedly it didn't fully grab me by throat (maybe the very ending did a bit). I guess as this series was a special offer, the question is whether I'd then want to take out an Apple+ subscription (even temporarily) on the back of this. The answer is resoundingly no! I expect the series will get better as the underlying stories of the characters reveal themselves, but this first season seemed a little too slapstick at times for my liking amongst all the serious aspects. At heart, it's not really that different in quality to the drama series from the terrestrial channels in the UK, so why pay a subscription for this?
Each to their own. A decent viewing.
