{"id":2125533,"date":"2025-10-30T20:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T20:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2125533"},"modified":"2025-10-30T20:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T20:35:10","slug":"move-over-netflix-emma-thompson-enters-the-streaming-era-with-apple-tvs-dark-down-cemetery-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/move-over-netflix-emma-thompson-enters-the-streaming-era-with-apple-tvs-dark-down-cemetery-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Move Over, Netflix \u2014 Emma Thompson Enters the Streaming Era with Apple TV\u2019s Dark \u2018Down Cemetery Road\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Worried about suffering withdrawal symptoms from \u201cSlow Horses\u201d<\/a>? Well, in a shrewd bit of scheduling, just as its fifth series concludes, Apple TV is premiering yet another Mick Herron adaptation centered around the bumbling inner workings of British government, starring an Oscar-winning national treasure to boot.<\/p>\n

Commanding center stage in \u201cDown Cemetery Road,\u201d however, is Emma Thompson in a role which, like Gary Oldman\u2019s slovenly antihero, has the potential to define her latter-day career.<\/p>\n

More from IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dame is, of course, no stranger to the small screen, having earned a BAFTA for \u201880s miniseries \u201cTutti Frutti\u201d and \u201cFortunes of War.\u201d And who can forget her Emmy-winning cameo in \u201cEllen,\u201d triple duties in \u201cAngels in America,\u201d and scarily prescient turn as a right-wing politician in Russell T. Davies\u2019 \u201cYears and Years\u201d<\/a>?<\/p>\n

But this engrossing eight-parter is the first time she\u2019s led a show in the streaming age. And, judging from its first three episodes, she\u2019s immediately struck gold.<\/p>\n

Thompson plays Zo\u00eb Boehm, a private investigator every bit as spiky as her pixie cut. Much of her derision is reserved for Joe (Adam Godley), her downtrodden husband and more pragmatic partner-in-crime. \u201cIs it another desperate damsel in search of a knight in shining cardies,\u201d she sneers about his new case, the first of several withering putdowns which instantly establishes who wears the trousers. \u201cSometimes I feel like your mum, picking you up from the f**k-up creche\u201d is another.<\/p>\n

Art restorer Sarah (Ruth Wilson) also bears the brunt of Zo\u00eb\u2019s acidic tongue when she shows up at her unkempt office looking for help. (\u201cLet me guess, you\u2019ve got a husband, he\u2019s got a secretary, am I warm?\u201d) Of course, having just survived a fireball that\u2019s ripped through her suburban neighborhood, it\u2019s arson rather than adultery she needs investigating. Well, that, and the small matter of a conspiracy involving the Ministry of Defense, a neighboring assassin, and a young girl who may or may not be dead.<\/p>\n

Indeed, ever since her painfully middle-class dinner party was interrupted by a nearby house explosion \u2014 depicted in the kind of slow-motion you\u2019d expect from a Zack Snyder film \u2014 Sarah has become something of an amateur P.I. herself. Unwilling to buy the tragic accident narrative, she makes herself a nuisance at the police station and the hospital, spurred on by a mysterious newspaper photo which appears to have cropped out a child she witnessed being rescued from the scene.<\/p>\n

But is all this in the imagination of a bored forty-something looking for distraction from her faltering marriage to a man obsessed about keeping up with the Joneses? Or, as suggested by the shadowy figures appearing to trail her every move, are there really more nefarious things at play?<\/p>\n

Of course, by this point, we already know the answer, confirmed by a series of secretive boardroom meetings between the cartoonishly domineering MoD head known as C (Darren Boyd) and weaselly underling Hamza (Adeel Akhtar). The former also gets his fair share of zingers, continually unleashing his disdain with the potty-mouthed zeal of \u201cThe Thick of It\u201d favorite Malcolm Tucker.<\/p>\n

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