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Apple TV+'s 'Prime Target' Review: THEY HATE THESE MATHS

By Dustin Rowles | TV | January 24, 2025 |

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Header Image Source: Apple TV+

Apple TV+’s latest, Prime Target, stars Leo Woodall (One Day, and the spitting image of a young Michael Pitt) as Edward Brooks, a post-graduate maths student. (It’s set in Cambridge, so it’s always “maths,” never math.) He’s brilliant — probably smarter than his professor, Robert Mallinder (David Morrissey) — but so obsessed with numbers that he’s also painfully antisocial. He’s the kind of guy who’ll sleep with a bartender but then tell him to leave first thing in the morning because he’s got maths to ponder! Edward’s only real companion is a small notebook he carries everywhere, scribbling numbers in it like his life depends on it. Honestly, it might. That tiny notebook gets more screen time than the other supporting characters in the first two episodes.

Edward is fixated on prime numbers. He also has this wild theory that there are “missing” numbers, kind of like how the Mayans didn’t invent zero until 3 B.C. He’s convinced he’ll discover a new number that’ll completely reshape how we see the world. Meanwhile, Professor Mallinder’s wife, Professor Andrea Lavin (Sidse Babett Knudsen), is preparing to investigate a recently opened 9th-century underground chamber in Baghdad, exposed after a gas explosion. Because obviously, ancient chambers and MATHS go hand in hand.

Over dinner, Professor Lavin shows Edward some indecipherable text from the Baghdad chamber. To me, it looks like gibberish. To Edward? MATHS. He immediately starts frantically scribbling numbers on the tablecloth mid-meal like Will Hunting on a MATHS bender. Mallinder, however, has had enough. He’s all, “YOU HAVE TO LET IT GO!” Turns out, Mallinder was once involved with another woman who had a similar theory about numbers. Spoiler: she died by suicide. And just to make things even more dramatic, Mallinder burns Edward’s work — OH NO EVEN THE TABLECLOTH — and then takes his own life. Not before leaving a cryptic voicemail, though.

But what if Mallinder didn’t actually kill himself? That’s what NSA operative Taylah Sanders (Quintessa Swindell) suspects. Her whole job, apparently, is spying on mathematicians to ensure they don’t solve some prime-number puzzle that would give them access to every computer in the world. Sounds bad. As she digs deeper, Taylah realizes Mallinder may have been murdered, and that maybe she should’ve been keeping tabs on Edward all along. Then, her NSA partner gets sniped, Taylah’s suddenly on the run, and a shadowy, maths-hating entity is out to kill her. THEY HATE THESE MATHS.

That’s the story through the first two episodes, which confirm what I’ve always known: the real villain is maths. Honestly, it feels like The Da Vinci Code meets A Beautiful Mind, but as if Ron Howard directed it after sustaining multiple concussions sustained from banging his head on a maths textbook.

It’s wildly ridiculous, oscillating between being painfully dull and unintentionally hilarious. It’s fun, but also boring, but also fun! But also boring. I hate it and want to stop watching, but I’m too invested in how much dumber it can get. And the tiebreaker may just be Leo Woodall’s dreamy eyes and his tiny notepad full of maths. How can I resist?