The reviews are in: this show's worth subscribing to Apple TV+ for

If you like your thrillers funny as well as fast, Apple TV+ has a treat for you: the third series of Slow Horses debuts this Friday, 1 December, and it's going to be tons of fun. Don't just take my word for it: the reviews are in and they're pretty much unanimous.

Slow Horses is the second-best show on Apple TV – to my mind Severance is the best, and that's coming back soon too – and given the quality of Apple TV's other shows such as Silo and For All Mankind, that's high praise indeed.

If you don't already have Apple TV+ you can get three months free with new Apple devices – handy if you've just bought Apple kit over Black Friday – and there are other promotions too including six months free for Sky VIP subscribers and three months free for PS4 and PS5 users.

What is Slow Horses and why should you stream it?

Slow Horses is based on the best-selling books by Mick Herron, which focus on a team of misfits who've been chucked out of MI5 after messing up missions and are now being given the jobs nobody else wants. Headed by so-bad-he's-good maverick Jackson Lamb, played by Gary Oldman at his scenery-chewing best, the team keep ending up out of their depth, over their heads and facing increasingly dangerous enemies.

It's beautifully shot, wonderfully written and it's a real ensemble piece: while every second of Oldman's screen time is an absolute hoot all of the Slow Horses are carefully drawn and come across as real people rather than spy-thriller cut-outs.

According to The Guardian, "it's wild how good Slow Horses is... we should be talking about it all the time." Flickering Myth says the third season is "looking set to match the high bar set by the opening two" while The Playlist says it "maintains its gold standard... We don’t need more James Bonds. We need more Jackson Lambs. And as many seasons of “Slow Horses” as we can get."

Slow Horses returns to Apple TV+ on 1 December.