The Little Drummer Girl, the latest John Le Carré spy adaptation, launched last night on BBC One in the UK with just over 5M viewers.

The ratings for the AMC co-pro couldn’t match the launch of the BBC’s previous Le Carré remake, The Night Manager, which opened in February 2016 with 6.1M overnight viewers. It also didn’t match the numbers that watched the opening of Bodyguard, which became the BBC’s biggest new drama in years with 6.7M initially tuning in, or Jenna Coleman’s The Cry, which began with 5.7M viewers.

Starring Big Little Lies’ Alexander Skarsgård, The Shape of Water’s Michael Shannon and Lady Macbeth’s Florence Pugh, the late 1970s-set thriller weaves a story of espionage and international intrigue; of love and betrayal. Young actress Charlie (Pugh) strikes up an acquaintance with an intriguing stranger while on vacation in Greece, but it rapidly becomes apparent that his intentions are far from romantic. The man is Becker (Skarsgård), an Israeli intelligence officer, who entangles her in a complex and high stakes plot orchestrated by Spymaster, Kurtz (Shannon).

The six-part drama is produced by The Night Manager producer The Ink Factory in partnership with 127 Wall and is television debut of Korean filmmaker Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden).

The Little Drummer Girl premieres on AMC over three consecutive nights beginning with a two-hour episode November 19 at 9 PM, followed by two-hour episodes at 9 PM on November 20 and 21.

It is being sold internationally by Endeavor Content, which was selling it globally at the recent Mipcom market in Cannes.