There is so much potential among the cast and characters in Down Cemetery Road, yet it struggles to pull the pieces together. What should have been the start of an exciting chapter in another Mick Herron run might live and die in this single season,

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 30, 2025

The series has been adapted by Slow Horses writers’ room alum, Morwenna Banks (who is also, epic fun fact, the voice of Peppa forebear Mummy Pig) and gives Thompson in particular a barbed role you won’t tire of seeing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 30, 2025

Well written, witty, sparing, with very occasional jolts of humour, it’s high tension, brainy stuff. Thompson goes down her new acting path of straight, serious roles with Ruth Wilson to create intuitive, dramatic flair

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 30, 2025

Thompson’s wonderfully assured performance makes you glad for every extra minute the character has been put onscreen.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2025

In its favour, though, is that unlike so many British crime dramas, Down Cemetery Road is remarkably devoid of exposition. Instead, it slowly sets up the nuanced characters and their interlinked lives, where tension simmers behind the middle-class facade.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 30, 2025

A cat-and-mouse game that has a light touch and is tonally off in places — but Thompson and Wilson manage to steer this into compelling viewing territory.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 30, 2025

While Down Cemetery Road can be more cartoonish than [Slow Horses], Wilson’s off-kilter performance and Thompson’s attempts to top Gary Oldman should be enough to please a crossover audience.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2025

The [show] has plenty of classy elements: the cinematography, the neatly sketched-in cameo roles, Thompson’s performance, pretty much everyone else’s. Nevertheless, it never forgets that its primary job, carried out with admirable diligence, is to thrill.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2025

The show shares enough positive qualities with its predecessor, from a mordant wit to some riveting action once things heat up, that “Slow Horses” fans will find plenty to tide them over between seasons.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2025

In many ways, it feels as though Down Cemetery Road is finding itself as much as Sarah and Zoë are. But the show’s brisk pace and unexpected humor help keep things surprising.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 30, 2025

Wilson deftly draws out Sarah’s shades of grey... Thompson, by contrast, is in technicolour, too famous to ever really disappear into a role. But when it’s this much fun, who cares?

Full Review | Oct 29, 2025

Zoë’s first adaptation stumbles out of the gate -- in large part because this show isn’t really her show. It’s Sarah’s show, too, and the two distinct stories struggle to merge into one solid series.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Oct 29, 2025

The flaws in Down Cemetery Road are not insignificant. But when you have a show built around the perfectly cast Emma Thompson... the flaws become minor irritants and not dealbreakers.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2025

Herron wrote several novels featuring Zoë; here’s hoping Thompson might dust off that dashing leather coat — complete with incongruously theatrical red lining — and solve a few more crimes in the future, meanness and all.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2025

Down Cemetery Road keeps viewers on their toes, unafraid of killing off a character any other show would keep around. And there are some episode-ending big twists early on that are genuinely surprising, even in this age of twisty-thriller oversaturation.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 29, 2025

Down Cemetery Road is great stuff. There is not a wasted moment, not a wasted word. Everything is there for a reason. The plot thickens at pace and the twists are worth waiting for.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 29, 2025

Everything is roiling just beneath the surface with Wilson; she’s like an exposed nerve ending, sensitive to all. Watching her work with Thompson, an all-time queen of the withering look, is one of the true joys on TV right now.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2025

‘Down Cemetery Road’... works because of the way it fuses character and conspiracy, never losing sight of the human cost beneath the machinery of a cover-up. It takes its time to build things and slowly pulls you in until walking away feels impossible.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 29, 2025

Unfortunately, despite two strong central performances from Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, Down Cemetery Road can’t quite live up to the high bar set by its Herron predecessor.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 29, 2025

Watching [Emma Thompson] update the hard-nosed private eye canon is a rare gift. Revel in it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 29, 2025