Apple TV+'s brainy conspiracy series Leo Woodall's Edward Brooks, they also find refuge in the purity of their genius, leaving the rest of the world to wait and see what they'll come up with next.

Prime Target checks many familiar action-conspiracy genre boxes despite being rooted in a compelling yet hyperbolic real-world concept. There's the obvious global security threat, the elusive idea or valuable object that could inspire world chaos in the wrong hands, and the familiar shadowy governmental and corporate agencies looking to harness the power of a tech breakthrough. The initial plot isn't too far off from Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, and countless mid-to-high-concept thrillers, in which one advanced reality-adjacent concept or tool can instantly rewrite the code of the entire world. In other words, a supervillain's wet dream.

Prime Target's Predictable Action Tropes Undermine Its Sharp & Brainy Concept

A Highly Original Concept Is Weighed Down By All-Too-Familiar Twists & Turns

Prime Target makes it clear that Edward Brooks is a genius. For one, the ing characters won't stop saying it. Brooks looks the part, often appearing well-dressed yet disheveled. He's almost always internally distant, as if drunk on an elixir of his own brilliance. Brooks, portrayed by a muted yet effective Leo Woodall, is also intentionally unbalanced, carrying little regard for social norms or anything that distracts from his pursuit of an almighty prime number theory.

Brooks is driven by an academic breakthrough that only he is capable of. He's focused purely on math, which makes him oblivious to the fact that powerful interested parties may do whatever it takes for a peak inside his illuminated mind. The fundamental concept of Prime Target is strong enough that it could have avoided relying on action tropes, twists, and turns. Brooks, a post-graduate at Cambridge, tries to discover a sophisticated pattern in prime numbers that would allow him to access every computer in the world.

Brooks only wishes to solve a complex and fascinating mathematical problem, disinterested in the resources and bullseyes that such a discovery would naturally give him.

The only thing is, Brooks doesn't care about this discovery as a tool; he only wishes to solve a complex and fascinating mathematical problem, disinterested in the resources and bullseyes that such a discovery would naturally give him. Woodall describes this "prime factor" in an interview with Screen Rant. "The key is made up of prime numbers" that is "so long that no one could ever possibly guess it unless you have a formula."

Prime Target's Shaky Conspiracy Plot Overrides Its Scholarly Atmosphere & Intrigue

Deeper Explanations Of Brooks' Line Of Thinking Would Have Been More Compelling

The best parts of Prime Target are entrenched in the intellectual mystery of the plot, which brings out a heady conspiracy narrative somewhere between The Bourne Identity and National Treasure. Like a great golf course, for example, Prime Target offers a level of intellectual challenge and strategic complexity but doesn't make it so complicated that a casual player would be overwhelmed and lose interest.

That said, the scholarly aspects introduced in the pilot episode are watered down as the series plays out. We watch Brooks scribble mathematical formulas and theorems on whiteboards, chalkboards, and notepads without making what is "gibberish" to most people accessible.

Scenes like these culminate in the repeated creative point that Brooks is a genius. Even in The Social Network, the thought process of developing Facebook is laid out simply by Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerberg, even as he ferociously writes code and analyzes algorithms on his dorm room window. This makes us more engaged and even smarter, whereas the countless scenes of Brooks scribbling advanced mathematics only serve to tell us time and time again that he is, in fact, a genius.

Brooks' initial pursuit, rooted in the statement, "Nature might be random but I'm trying to find a pattern in it," creates an effortless "boy wonder" fascination despite his tight and unfriendly demeanor.

This minor critique would have been one of the core fallacies of Prime Target if it weren't for the formulaic action plot developments that feel copy-and-pasted into the series' latter half. Still, there's something hypnotic and immersive about Prime Target's scholarly atmosphere, even if it can be quite emotionally frigid.

The allure of Cambridge's campus matched with the coastal beauty of southern and the friction of a condensed Baghdad city center make for a consistently compelling variety of settings. Brooks' initial pursuit, rooted in the statement, "Nature might be random but I'm trying to find a pattern in it," creates an effortless "boy wonder" fascination despite his tight and unfriendly demeanor.

Prime Target's strongest conflicts do not arise when the guns start firing, but rather when the series pits its two main ideological interests against each other. Innovation versus industry, and the power, dangers, and cost of a breakthrough combine to establish the winning formula beneath the predictable action-conspiracy tropes on Prime Target's surface. In a potential season 2, Brooks should offer a bit more guidance to us about his line of thinking and brilliant theorems, and maybe crack a smile.

Prime Target consists of eight episodes. The first two release on January 22, followed by episodic releases every Wednesday until March 5.