Apple TV+ is slowly but surely building up a prestige lineup of original series, with Slow Horses being one of the standouts. The series’ fourth season is underway and a fifth was already green-lit by Apple in January 2024. Adapted from author Mick Herron’s Slough House novels, the live-action adaptation successfully translates its spy drama and bleak humor.
The spy genre has spawned many great serialized stories over the years, from a thrilling FX Cold War drama to Amazon Prime Video’s Tom Clancy adaptation. Fans will have plenty to dig into during their inevitable wait for Slow Horses’ MI5 rejects to return in season 5.
While fans won’t find the brand of dark, sardonic humor of Slow Horses in FX’s The Americans, they’ll be kept on edge with its drama. Helmed by showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, the series takes place during the tension of the Cold War and focuses on two Soviet KGB agents.
The Diplomat’s Keri Russell and Perry Mason’s Matthew Rhys star as the Soviet plants and pose as a married American couple. Fans of spy thrillers and period-piece stories will be well-catered to with The Americans. The series was widely acclaimed across its six-season-long run for the riveting dynamic between its co-leads, as well as the tense relationships that develop from their characters’ high-stakes missions.
The Americans is available to stream now on Hulu and purchase on Apple TV.
Author Tom Clancy paved the way for a lucrative multimedia franchise that included movies, video games, and TV shows. For the latter, Amazon Prime Video’s Jack Ryan was the franchise’s recent hit. Created by Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland, this adaptation sees The Office and A Quiet Place star John Krasinski as the titular agent on a string of deadly field assignments.
Once a CIA analyst working quietly behind a desk, Jack’s life is uprooted when he tracks down several suspicious bank transfers. Jack Ryan certainly leans harder on its action-thriller elements, but spy fans will find plenty of tension in the Prime Video original. Even without reinventing the genre wheel, Jack Ryan is elevated by a compelling lead performance from Krasinski, exciting action set pieces, and political intrigue.
Jack Ryan is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video and purchase on Apple TV.
Created and written by Jed Mercurio originally for the BBC, Bodyguard is one of the best spy-thrillers available to stream. The six-episode miniseries features Game of Thrones star Richard Madden as Police Sergeant David Budd, a British Afghanistan war veteran.
Budd finds himself assigned to personally guard Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes) — despite loathing her war-time policies. Bodyguard is one of the most compelling miniseries on Netflix overall, featuring a well-paced and dramatic story that justifies its tight runtime. The controversial politics and tense dynamic between Madden and Hawes’ characters are palpable off the screen, which is all supported by a terrorist plot that’s always involving.
Bodyguard is available to stream now on Netflix and to purchase on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.
The first two episodes of Slow Horses season 4 are available to stream now on Apple TV+, with new episodes releasing every Wednesday.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.