Prime Target (TV series)

Prime Target is a thriller television series created by Steve Thompson and starring Leo Woodall as a mathematician. It premiered on Apple TV+ on 22 January 2025.

Synopsis

Edward Brooks is a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge. The subject of his dissertation is an analysis of patterns in the sequence of prime numbers. His academic supervisor, Robert Mallinder, is being monitored by NSA agents, including Taylah Sanders, who keep watch on anyone who might make advances in this field given its importance to cryptography. When Mallinder realises the subject of Brooks' work, he warns him off the project and destroys his student's research. Shortly afterwards Mallinder appears to kill himself. Around about the same time, Sanders' colleagues are executed and she flees to find Brooks. They travel to Baghdad to continue his research in a newly discovered historical site that may contain information from early Islamic mathematicians. Sanders finds that her supervisor has approved Brooks' assassination. Eventually Brooks is detained by the NSA and is able to develop a prime finder that will aid codebreaking.
Brooks realizes that Professor James Alderman has been the one ruthlessly pursuing the prime finder and will keep ordering killings in order to find it. Brooks kills him and goes on the run while Sanders faces the police.

Cast

Main

Leo Woodall as Edward Brooks, a mathematics student at Cambridge University
Quintessa Swindell as Taylah Sanders, an NSA agent remotely spying on various academics
Sidse Babett Knudsen as Professor Andrea Lavin, Robert Mallinder's wife, an archaeologist and professor at Cambridge
David Morrissey as Professor Robert Mallinder, a mathematics professor who died under suspicious circumstances
Stephen Rea as Professor James Alderman
Fra Fee as Adam Mellor
Joseph Mydell as Professor Raymond Osborne
Jason Flemyng as Stephen Patrick Nield
Martha Plimpton as Jane Torres
Harry Lloyd as Andrew Carter
Ali Suliman as Dr. Akram Nizar
Recurring
Maanuv Thiara as Dr. Charan Nathoo
Sergej Onopko as Bogdan Vlahovic
Guest
Daisy Waterstone as Fiona Carey
Tim Faraday as Keith Wyatt
Rod Hallett as Brian Brooks
Tom Stourton as Ricky Olson
Sofia Barclay as Safiya Zamil
Tom Byrne as Tom Grayson
Episodes

Production

It was announced in February 2024 that Apple TV+ had greenlit the series, created by Steve Thompson. Principal photography took place in Windsor in May 2023, with other filming locations reported to include London. Filming took place in Cambridge in August 2023. Photography took place in Morocco, Paris, and Kent.

Release

Prime Target was released on Apple TV+ on 22 January 2025, with the first two episodes available immediately and followed by one episode on a weekly basis until the eighth and final episode on 5 March.

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 46% approval rating with an average rating of 5.2/10, based on 43 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, " ÷ sludgy pacing = an attractive but mediocre globetrotting series." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 56 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.