Look, I know there's no getting away from Amazon Prime Day this week of all weeks – the huge sales event is grabbing a lot of oxygen, and I've been watching for deals with the best of them. Still, though, it shouldn't stop you from getting the odd bit of normal, regular, very good news.
Right on cue, Apple quietly announced this week that it's renewed its fantastic, hit show Slow Horses for another season – the seventh. Fans will have noticed that this is properly far in advance, given that Season 5 of the show doesn't even premiere on Apple TV+ until 24 September, in a couple of months' time.
In fact, if you're an even bigger fan of the show (like me), you might have reason for further optimism still. After all, Apple has repeatedly run the show cleverly, shooting seasons back-to-back to let it take its time in post-production and keep the show running to a roughly annual schedule.
So, reading between the lines, it's entirely possible that Apple is only announcing the seventh season right now, but that it'll in fact be shooting Season 7 and Season 8 back-to-back when it does ramp up into production.
Whether you get that hopeful or just choose to stick with the letter of what Apple has technically announced this week, it's brilliant news either way. Slow Horses is everything I want from a streaming service like Apple (which I reckon is the best streamer going).
It's tightly-plotted, filmed slickly, has great characters and a willingness to repeatedly make hard choices, killing people off and keeping the story realistic at all times. Obviously, if they do kill off River Cartwright at any point, I'll lose my mind, but I'm still glad it's a show with some actual threat.
Being able to sit back at this stage and know that we have at least three more full seasons to enjoy is also such a rarity. Netflix seems to decide whether to kill shows off in the first fortnight after they drop a season, and Prime Video just torched The Wheel of Time after three seasons, so Apple deserves major praise for being willing to back a good thing so far in advance.
