Ponies: A Review
Ponies is a Cold War spy thriller TV series that premiered on Peacock on January 15, 2026. Ponies had genuine promise. Two CIA operatives’ wives, Bea and Twila, lose their husbands in a suspicious plane crash. They decide to join the CIA to uncover the truth behind the tragedy. Their boss, Dane, reluctantly agrees, believing the Soviets would never suspect ordinary women as spies.Thus two American embassy secretaries in 1970s Moscow become CIA operatives as they are Persons of No Interest.
The concept of “PONIES” (Persons of No Interest) offers rich satirical ground. Ordinary women unnoticed by intelligence agencies become the perfect spies precisely because nobody suspects them. The costumes and set design lean into retro exaggeration, almost parodying Cold War aesthetics.
It stars Emilia Clarke as Bea and Haley Lu Richardson as Twila, that lead this eight-episode series that can’t quite decide what it wants to be. The premise had real potential to skewer Cold War gender dynamics and espionage absurdity. Instead, the show delivers a frustrating mess. Thus, the Peacock’s Cold War spy series wastes a brilliant premise.
A Confused Genre
The show attempts to blend spy thriller, buddy comedy, and satire. It fails at all three. One moment presents genuine espionage tension. The next pivots to broad humor about bureaucracy. The tonal whiplash never resolves.
The series markets itself as satire. This is misleading. True satire requires sharp wit and biting commentary. Compare this to The Death of Stalin or Veep. Those shows cut deep with clever dialogue and precise observation. Ponies offers neither. The attempts at parody land somewhere between mild and forgettable.
The show feels more like a straight spy thriller with occasional comedy beats. But it lacks the suspense and complexity of actual thrillers. It exists in an awkward middle ground, satisfying no one.
Performances Do All the Heavy Lifting
Clarke and Richardson deliver performances far better than the material deserves. They are the only reason to watch this show. Clarke in particular uses micro-expressions to create meaning where the script provides none. A raised eyebrow, a twisted smile, a perfectly timed pause. These facial movements carry entire scenes.
Richardson matches her with solid comic timing and genuine chemistry. The duo elevates weak writing through sheer commitment and talent. Without their energy, the show would collapse entirely. This is performance-driven satire, not writer’s satire. The actors create the humor. The script merely provides a loose framework.
Supporting actors struggle with even thinner material. Adrian Lester shines as usual but his character does not give much room to play. Sveta, for instance, appears mostly as a corpse. No backstory, no personality, just a plot device to create artificial intrigue. Sveta is killed to raise the stakes for Bea and Twila, showing them how dangerous their new world is and how fragile alliances can be.
Artjom Gilz plays Andrei across all eight episodes. He brings charisma to an under-written role. But the character never develops beyond surface ambiguity. Is he ally or enemy? The show never bothers to make him interesting enough to care.
Zero Character Development
The treatment of minor characters reveals lazy storytelling. Sveta (played by Franciska Töröcsik) appears mostly as a corpse. No backstory. No personality. She exists purely as a plot device to create artificial intrigue. This is not clever mystery writing. This is narrative laziness.
Even recurring characters remain flat. Andrei appears in every episode yet never gains real depth. The show confuses withholding information with building suspense. It mistakes abruptness for cleverness.
Dialogue Without Memorable Moments
The dialogue never rises above functional. No memorable lines exist. No quotable exchanges. The writing serves only to move plot points forward. In satire, audiences should remember biting one-liners and witty banter. Here, viewers will remember how Clarke delivered certain lines, not the lines themselves.
This is a critical failure. Memorable moments come from dialogue. Veep lives in quotable zingers. The Americans builds tension through loaded conversations. Ponies offers neither wit nor tension. Just bland exposition that actors desperately try to animate. I wonder if they used AI to generate bland dialogues. Functional and uncontroversial but unmemorable.
The story follows predictable spy thriller beats. Betrayals feel telegraphed. The revelations land without impact. The writing could have been generated by algorithm. Functional but soulless.
Pacing Kills Binge Potential
Episodes feel long despite running under an hour. Scenes stretch unnecessarily. The show confuses atmosphere with substance. Long silences and exaggerated bureaucratic rituals might parody Cold War paranoia. But they pile up into tedium.
This makes Ponies terrible for binge watching. In weekly viewing, the slow pace might feel atmospheric. Consumed continuously, it becomes exhausting. The stretched scenes and narrative jumps that create intrigue in isolation feel disjointed when watched back to back.
The show demands episodic viewing. One episode every few days at most. Anything more reveals the structural weaknesses too clearly. My patience lasted for only 5 episodes and thereafter it had to be left off.
Missed Opportunity
It missed many potential stings. A satirical examination of Cold War gender dynamics and espionage could have been brilliant. The “PONIES” concept alone offers endless material. How intelligence agencies underestimated women. How ordinary people got caught in geopolitical games. How paranoia infected every interaction.
The 1970s Moscow setting provides rich visual and thematic territory. The show gestures at these ideas but never commits. All the wonderful costumes and sets created by cinematographers, Anna Patarakina & Callan Green, to show the pre-1980 time in Moscow is wasted.
The show confuses abruptness with cleverness. It mistakes withholding information for building suspense. It wants to be satire without doing the hard work of satire. It wants to be thriller without building genuine suspense. It ends up being neither.
Creators Susanna Fogel and David Iserson clearly had ambitions. But the execution falls flat. The writing never sharpens. The tone never stabilizes. The narrative never justifies its pacing.
Verdict
Peacock’s Cold War spy series struggles to find its identity. Music by Jung Jae-il (Parasite) and Christopher Willis (The Death of Stalin) barely exist in background.
Ponies survives on acting alone. Clarke and Richardson deserve credit for making this watchable. They transform bland dialogue through delivery and expression. They create chemistry where the script offers only exposition. Watch for the performances. Don’t expect much else.
The strong performances cannot overcome fundamental storytelling failures. Confused genre. Zero memorable dialogue. Weak character development. Pacing problems. Missed satirical potential.
The plot had everything it needed to succeed. Good Plot with strong premise. Talented cast. Interesting historical setting. It squandered all of it through lazy script writing and tonal confusion.
Rating: 2/5
Watch for Clarke and Richardson. Skip everything else. Better yet, watch Slow Horses or The Americans instead. Those shows understand what Ponies never grasps. An espionage drama needs either sharp writing or genuine suspense. Preferably both.
Not recommended for binge watching. Barely recommended at all.