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Friday, March 14, 2025

Prime Target: Math nerds are probably the most dangerous people on the planet

Mathematical mystery of ancient clay tablet solved UNSW scientists have discovered the purpose of a famous 3700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing it is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table


The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance  is Monitoring


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404 Media has obtained the list of sites and services that ICE contractor ShadowDragon pulls data from. ShadowDragon sources data from all over the web and lets government analysts easily search it and draw connections between people.
The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance Contractor is Monitoring

A young mathematician is on the verge of a breakthrough when he realizes an unseen enemy is trying to destroy his idea; together with a government agent who's been tracking him, he begins to unravel a conspiracy.

A young mathematician is on the verge of a breakthrough when he realizes an unseen enemy is trying to destroy his idea; together with a government agent who's been tracking him, he begins to unravel a conspiracy.
Director
Brady Hood
Creator
Steve Thompson
Network
Apple TV+
Rating
TV-14
Genre
Drama,  Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
British English
Release Date
Jan 22, 2025

Prime Target review – this stylish thriller is like Good Will Hunting meets The Bourne Identity


Math nerds are probably the most dangerous people on the planet

This article is more than 1 month old

Utterly preposterous and brilliant fun, Leo Woodall’s turn as a maths genius hunted by shadowy forces is glorious, confident escapism. It’s as enjoyable as it is ludicrous



Prime Target kicks off with a fascinating premise: Edward Brooks (Leo Woodall) is on the brink of unraveling the mathematical secrets that safeguard every computer system in the world. The thrilling puzzle at the root of Edward’s work positions the Apple TV+ drama for brilliance, but as the doe-eyed prodigy is pulled into a dangerous web of intellectual espionage and conspiratorial intrigue alongside NSA agent Taylah Sanders (Quintessa Swindell), Prime Target starts to lose its footing. 

While the opening episodes establish a sharp and engaging story grounded in a cozy Cambridge setting brimming with tweedy charms, its later, international-spy-thriller portions begin to feel like a Dan Brown novel blending egghead enigmas with grand conspiracies. 

The race to crack the pattern within the prime numbers underpinning most modern cryptographic security stumbles into the same pitfalls as the film versions of Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, as its embrace of big ideas is accompanied by dull info dumps, uneven pacing, and an overreliance on scenes of people doing research, pointing at screens, or reading old notes with intense stares.


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‘Prime Target’ Is a Charming Popcorn Thriller

Don’t think overly hard about the premise. Just enjoy the constant cliffhangers and beautiful people.



“Prime Target,” an eight-episode thriller premiering Wednesday on Apple TV+, has the juicy vibe of a novel you might pick up at an airport and rip through in a single flight. It has an outlandish premise, beautiful people, and it ends on a cliffhanger every episode.
After an opening scene in Baghdad, where a gas explosion unearths an ancient site, the series really gets underway at the University of Cambridge, in England. That’s where we meet Edward Brooks, a brilliant young mathematician played by Leo Woodall.
Despite good looks that would make him welcome at any college rager, Edward is a loner who spends his days scribbling in his notebook, hard at work on a theorem involving prime numbers. (He doesn’t use computers; what he’s doing is too advanced for those silly things.) When his professor (David Morrissey) gets wind of the puzzle Edward is trying to solve, he panics: Basically, it’s a formula to pick any digital lock anywhere. Oops.

Because of the volatility of his research, Edward ends up in the cross-hairs of the U.S. National Security Agency, which has been spying on high-level mathematicians in case they stumble across the next big weapon. Luckily for Edward, a rebellious agent named Taylah (Quintessa Swindell) becomes his ally.

Prime Target” doesn’t try too hard to explain the equations Edward is doing, which is fine. It would go over my head anyway. Instead, we get a globe-trotting adventure in which Edward and Taylah are constantly on the run from people who want to kill them because of Edward’s math.
And ultimately realism isn’t the strong suit of “Prime Target.” Woodall became a television heartthrob playing charming cads in Season 2 of “The White Lotus” and in Netflix’s “One Day.” He isn’t the first person you think of to play a shy, conflict-avoidant mathematician. Still, he has a sheepish appeal that works well in this context. And Swindell, stomping around in leather jackets, baggy jeans and motorcycle boots, makes for a cool surveillance expert. Her tragic back story is vague, but her fashion sense is kicking.


All of this makes for a show about smart people that still allows you to turn down your brain and have a good time.




 

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