Apple TV+ has dropped the official trailer for Down Cemetery Road, an Oxford-set conspiracy thriller pairing Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson. Watch the trailer above and read on for the essentials.
The setup
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A blast rips through a sleepy Oxford street and a child disappears in the chaos. Sarah Trafford (Ruth Wilson) can’t shake it, so she ropes in private investigator Zoë Boehm (Emma Thompson). What starts as a good-neighbor check spirals into a tangle of buried identities, suspicious “resurrections,” and bodies piling up. Every lead hits a velvet rope—official seals, fixed smiles, and doors that shouldn’t be locked—pushing Sarah and Zoë toward a conspiracy that’s been hiding in plain sight.
From Herron’s books — and how far this could go
Based on Mick Herron’s first Zoë Boehm novel, the series plants seeds for a larger arc. Asked what attracted her to the series, Wilson told TV Insider: “To be frank, it was working with Emma Thompson. I love Slow Horses, so it was the opportunity to also be in that Mick Herron world.” She adds that Sarah starts as “the kind of odd one out in this weird world,” but you realise she fits the chaos more than she knows.
On the road ahead, Wilson says there are four books total and that the team “are going to try and put it into three seasons altogether.” Sarah disappears from books two and three and returns in four, but Wilson notes the show may write her into those middle chapters: “I think they might bring Sarah in, create another storyline for her,” Wilson said. Of course, another chapter will depend on how well this first season does. “We’ll probably know by the end of the year whether we’re going to go again.”
And on teaming with Thompson, Wilson is effusive: “Oh, she’s amazing. As soon as we got together, it was like, OK, this is where the show is. It’s this dynamic, these two women, they’re hilarious. She’s such a good energy on set… playful and easy, and everything is just fun… finding some really quirky dynamic between the two characters was really fun… The two characters worked so well. I loved it.”
Cast, creators & release
The series was created and written by Morwenna Banks (Slow Horses), with Natalie Bailey (Bay of Fires) as lead director. Thompson executive produces alongside Banks, Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Tom Nash, and author Mick Herron.
The ensemble cast also includes Adeel Akhtar, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Tom Goodman-Hill, Darren Boyd, Tom Riley, Adam Godley, Sinéad Matthews, Ken Nwosu, Fehinti Balogun, and Aiysha Hart.
Down Cemetery Road runs eight episodes and premieres on Apple TV+ with a two-episode drop on October 29, followed by one episode released weekly through December 10.
