We tell you what the new Apple TV+ project "Dangerous Numbers" turned out to be, where Leo Woodall plays a genius mathematician who makes a great discovery and tries to save his life.

Imagine a video game where cool graphics coexist with glitchy controls, and an epic plot falls apart by the third mission. "Dangerous Numbers" (original title Prime Target, playing with prime number terminology) is exactly that kind of project. The Apple TV+ series tries to cross mathematics (Leo Woodall as a scientist who inadvertently discovers a crypto algorithm through prime numbers), adventures in the style of "The Da Vinci Code," and a spy thriller (and sometimes even an action movie!), but instead of a successful mix, it becomes a collection of clichés.

The main character Edward is a mathematical genius, but his emotional range is comparable to a Casio calculator. Woodall acts as if in power-saving mode: even when the guy is escaping from killers, he seems to be solving quadratic equations in his head (or whatever genius mathematicians solve).

The situation improves slightly thanks to Quintessa Swindell and her character Taylah, who works for the NSA and tries to save the boy. Their dynamic with Edward could, in theory, lift the project out of the swamp of spy movie clichés. It could have become a peculiar combination of "The Big Bang Theory" and an impossible "Mission" with Tom Cruise. However, the creators for some reason forgot about humor, chemistry, and generally active interaction between characters. The heroes' dialogues are mostly purely functional. And their characters are sketched with very broad strokes.

Speaking of clichés, it's noticeable that the writers assembled the setting from scraps of other projects: here we have the aforementioned "The Da Vinci Code" (ciphers in historical monuments, travels across countries in search of a solution), "Mr. Robot" with its techno-paranoia, and any other spy thriller with an "invisible" enemy. Not to mention that the series' antagonists—caricature government shadows—are so devoid of motivation that it seems they were created by an AI trained on conspiracy theorists' Telegram channels.

Another problem is that the creators of the project seem not to have decided what they actually want to create. A conspiracy thriller? A political detective story? A drama about genius? The series flits between genres like a student before exams, and ultimately fails all of them.

If you're a fan of background series watching while cooking, maybe "Dangerous Numbers" will work for you. But for those looking for an intellectual thriller on the level of "Person of Interest," there's nothing to catch here. After watching, you just want to exclaim: "Proof is incorrect. Moving on to the next problem."

Trailer: