Prime Target is an unremarkable thriller about a remarkably hot math whiz
“Right now, math nerds are probably the most dangerous people on the planet.”
Photo: Apple TV+
From its wordplay-laden title to its outlandish premise, Prime Target is a ridiculous proposition—and an occasionally entertaining one. But there’s no denying that this AppleTV+ series hinges entirely on a laughable conceit—namely, that math (or “maths,” as the Brits refer to them) can be thrilling, intriguing, and, in the babyfaced features of Leo Woodall, even sexy. To say the One Day and White Lotus actor is called to do for maths what Harrison Ford did for archeology, what Sam Neil did for paleontology—heck, even what Nic Cage did for cryptographers—is perhaps too reductive. But that makes it no less accurate.
Woodall plays Edward Brook, a bashful British graduate student whose research interests are, we’re told, rather arcane and unfashionable. He’s obsessed with prime numbers—you know, 2, 3, 5, 7…all those numbers that are only divisible by one and themselves. He’s driven to unlock the mysteries therein. Prime numbers, he knows, are everywhere in nature. And there’s no doubt a hidden inner coherence to the seeming chaos they suggest. He knows he sounds a tad looney when he shares such ideas, that he comes off as a kind of conspiracy nut, one not quite suited to work at a research university. It’s why he mostly keeps his musings to himself. That is, until a fateful dinner with his new advisor, Professor Robert Mallinder (David Morrissey), and his wife, Professor Andrea Lavin (Sidse Babett Knudsen, the show’s stealth MVP). That’s when photos of newly discovered, long-buried ruins under Baghdad, which Andrea is giddy about researching, unlock in Edward furious problem solving (on a tablecloth, no less—he can’t be bothered with paper, for God’s sakes!) that may lead to a maths breakthrough centuries in the making.
But Prime Target isn’t really a show about math theorems nor about how Edward dutifully works late nights trying to Beautiful Mind his way through the hidden meanings within prime numbers. No, this is a thriller thorough and through, because, as we learn, prime numbers make our world—or rather, our digital world—go round. They hold the key (literally) to our passwords, to the entire security infrastructure on which everything from banks to government secrets rest on. If anyone were to crack that code, well, it would spell trouble for lots of people. There would be no such thing as privacy, no secrets whatsoever, and maybe nothing would be secure.
This is why mathematicians like Edward and Professor Mallinder are constantly being surveilled by the likes of Tayla (Quintessa Swindell), a young woman whose job is to keep track of dreary research exploits in universities all over the world. And so when she spies that Mallinder (following Edward’s hunch) gets to working on prime numbers at his office late one night, she sets into motion a rollicking ride that will find every single one of these characters involved in a serpentine plot involving the NSA, villainous think tanks, ruthless mercenaries, Martha Plimpton, and, yes, plenty of maths.