• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Oct 29, 2025 By Kyle Lemmon Photography by Apple TV+ Web Exclusive

The premiere of Down Cemetery Road is, unsurprisingly, brimming with can’t miss plot twists and acerbic humor. Chalk part of that up to it being based on novels by Mick Heron, of Slow Horses fame. But instead of Slow Horses’ spies and globe trotting, this new series centers on amateur sleuth Sarah Tucker–a frazzled but resolute Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre, The Affair). In a way, Sarah has always had a detective’s eye for detail, as revealed in the opening scene at a gallery warehouse where she meticulously restores paintings. It’s sumptuously shot, and Wilson meets the moment, quietly rebuking a boss who takes her and the priceless painting she’s poring over for granted.

Down Cemetery Road’s promos heavily emphasize not only Wilson but also Emma Thompson. Understandable, given her 40-year strong career that’s garnered an Oscar, Emmys, and numerous other trophies. Despite a disappointingly smaller share of screen time than the unexpected (given the marketing) protagonist Sarah, Thompson’s Zoë Boehm ranks among the best characters of her decades spanning career. A private eye with a resolve as steely as her cropped grey hair, Zoë spots clues and takes the piss with equal mercilessness. Thompson is clearly having a ball with Herring’s barbed wire British banter, especially in early scenes with Joe Silverman, her partner in private investigating and in life. Adam Godley— who has shared billing with Thompson numerous times, most famously in Love Actually— plays inept husband Silverman with endearing panache. In fact his argyle addled fashion and the vintage jazz he listens to while pondering dead end cases in their past-due rented P.I. office runs completely counter to ruthless Zoë’s very essence.

When wanna-be investigator Sarah can’t get past the case of a missing girl after her neighbor’s house explodes, she happens upon Zoë and Joe’s P.I. office while commuting home from her painting restoration job in quaintly throwback Cambridge. Joe shows interest in the case but is sidetracked by endless tit-for-tats with Zoë, and when she steps out he tops all that by quipping to Sarah: “Now that Cruella’s gone to hunt puppies, who’s for a coffee?”

Herron’s lacerating prose gets a fitting 2025 update from powerhouse UK creative Morwenna Banks. She made a name for herself as the voice of Mummy on Peppa Pig but has since adapting Slow Horses. Though Down Cemetery Road was first published in 2025, she makes the premiere feel of-the-moment with characters like Sarah’s neighbor, Wigwam (Sinead Matthews). After the explosion next door that sets Sarah into a sleuthing tailspin, our protagonists chats with Wigwam and sees that that neighbor’s child has written a card for the missing girl related to the family slain by the explosion. The card says “Sorry your mommy Did.” When Sarah gives Wigwam side eye, her hippy-dippy neighbor explains “We don’t correct spelling. It’s undermining.” Such barbs at millennial parents makes Down Cemetery Road hilarious but also surprisingly and laudably creatively satirical.

Although Joe, while investigating, is prone to conspiracy theories that make Zoë roll her eyes, she is aghast to learn that the house explosion in fact, “goes all the way to the top.” Or at least to middle management, which brings us to the Ministry of Defense bureaucrats entangled in, and scrambling to cover up, the house explosion. Adeel Akhtar plays Hamza.He’s a dithering dweeb losing control of field agent Amos (Fehinti Balogun), who had the bright idea to use a staged gas leak to destroy the house and witnesses within. After that, hapless Hamza is summoned to the office of mysterious Defense Ministry higher-up C. He’s played by BAFTA winning comedic actor Darren Boyd. The height differential between him and Akhtar alone is played up for enough laughs to make Down Cemetery Road’s early episodes among the year’s most memorable. All this is brilliantly written, performed and filmed, from the way C towers over Hamza, tells him “You’ve really bollocks-ed it this time,” and—better still—impatiently waits for his sarcasm to sink in and for Hamza to slowly realize just how furious C is.

Enjoyable as all this is, the very best one-on-one exchange on Down Cemetery Road is far more bittersweet. Toward the premiere’s end Joe sits at his desk restlesslessly, Ella Fitzgerald spinning on the turntable. The lighting is soft, and the camera and sound are set up to evoke a one-act play (fitting, given Godley’s theatre background). Before long, Zoë darts into the room and washes her underarms, then other parts, hurriedly at the sink. She and Joe’s banter turns funny to flinching—though never angry— as she details his immaturity and unreliability with exasperation. He begins to flirt a bit, and grins hopefully when she pitch perfectly utters “Come here, little fucker.” But we feel every shred of his dismay as he realizes Zoë is referring to some peach fuzz she’s plucked off her 60-something, though still very much attractive, visage. Such bleakly honest humor continues until Zoë makes her way to the door, despite Joe’s pained but gentle protests, leaving him at his desk as Ella’s “Lullabye of Birdland” lyrics ring out achingly. That exchange between Zoë and Joe is Emmy-worthy. Sadly, Down Cemetery Road fails to maintain the instantly memorable momentum of its premiere.

If Down Cemetery Road had been a movie, back when thrillers for grownups got greenlit for the multiplex, there’d be more than enough story to build off the premiere’s developments to a solid conclusion. Thompson’s formidable presence as Zoë would’ve offset any flaws in a shorter run time. But the writers sadly haven’t developed enough sheer story to sustain this eight episode season. Admittedly I only watched six, but the last one I saw had such whiplash inducing changes in tone and jolting transitions from one too hasty, pointless scene after the next that it was a slog to make it to the end credits. Hopefully the finale ends on a high note, and a second season is greenlit and written with the same Swiss watchmaker’s precision of Slow Horses. Thompson having a proper season with far more screentime as Zoë would make that worthwhile, because she’d be the best P.I. of prestige TV era. As is, Down Cemetery Road’s first season starts off as a pulse-pounding journey that sadly hits a dead end.

Author rating: 5/10