Before Apple TV's Slow Horses, This 75-Episode Thriller Was TV's Best Spy Show

Sep 02, 2026 - 01:14

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Before Apple TV's Slow Horses, This 75-Episode Thriller Was TV's Best Spy Show

Published Sep 1, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT

Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel.

Before Slow Horses arrived over from England, there was an America-centric thriller on FX that was the undisputed greatest spy show ever. Slow Horses, based on the Slough House novels by Mick Herron, was first turned into a TV series in April 2022 on Apple TV+. In just four years, four more seasons have arrived, and a sixth is soon on the way.

Slow Horses is striking while the iron is hot, forgoing the frustrating modern TV convention of taking multiple years between seasons. It's kept the series in the cultural conversation, reminding viewers again and again why it's one of the best spy TV shows of the 21st century, surpassing the former great spy show.

The Americans was, for years, the high watermark of espionage TV shows. The Americans premiered on FX in 2013, and ran for six seasons. An original series, the show stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, a married couple living near Washington, D.C. who are actually deep undercover Russian spies.

The series follows their attempts to steal intelligence for the KGB and continue the facade as a happy married couple, complete with two children. The nature of their job, the threat of capture and death, their complicated personal relationship, and the fake life they built are carefully balanced, with each piece constantly threatening to upend the other.

The Americans ended eight years ago in 2018, and despite its importance during its run, it, like any show, eventually people will start to forget how great it actually was, with so many new shows to take their attention. So it's never a bad time to remember how great a show The Americans is.

The Americans Is Still One Of The Greatest Spy Shows Ever

Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell looking concerned in The Americans.

The Americans ended its run with five Golden Globe nominations, one Golden Globe win, 12 Emmy nominations, two Emmy wins, and a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. It has well and truly earned its place in the list of great TV shows ever. It's a show that's an easy answer for anyone who's having trouble deciding on what to watch next.

The series is a masterclass in character, tension, and political thrills, with the thick plot of the story mingling with the incredible character study that grows more critical every season. The trans-Pacific politics at play provide bouts of excitement, but it's The Americans' strong grasp on person-to-person politics that makes the series shine.

The Americans is a deep, psychologically probing family drama that considers whether the lies a family of spies tells themselves and others are actually all that different from the lies any other "normal" family of Americans tells themselves on an average day. The slow burn of the early seasons gives way to a boiling-hot endgame that doesn't stop until the final episode.

The Koreans Is An Upcoming Adaptation Of The Americans

Noah Emmerich as Stan Beeman bathed in red light in The Americans on FX

Slow Horses may have some competition for the best spy show on TV in the near future. The Koreans is a South Korean adaptation of The Americans, with the setting moved to 1990s South Korea. Lee Byung-hun and Han Ji-min take on the roles of a South Korean couple secretly working for the North Korean government.

If there's a time period more suited to espionage storytelling than America in the Cold War, it's the 90s on the Korean peninsula. The conflict between the countries is still relevant, and if the series remembers that the interpersonal drama is the main draw of the show, it could rise to the levels of The Americans and Slow Horses.

Release Date 2013 - 2018-00-00

Showrunner Joe Weisberg

Directors Daniel Sackheim, Thomas Schlamme, Daniel Attias, Kevin Dowling, Stefan Schwartz, Adam Arkin, Matthew Rhys, Nicole Kassell, Noah Emmerich, Andrew Bernstein, John Dahl, Kevin Bray, Roxann Dawson, Steph Green, Sylvain White, Alex Chapple, Alik Sakharov, Bill Johnson, Charlotte Sieling, Christopher Misiano, Constantine Makris, Gavin O'Connor, Gregory Hoblit, Gwyneth Horder-Payton

Writers Melissa James Gibson, Stuart Zicherman, Hilary Bettis, Bradford Winters, Angelina Burnett, Sneha Koorse