Toxic Town 2025 Tv Series Review Trailer

 Jack Thorne writes the kind of meaningful, worthwhile dramas you definitely (no, seriously) plan to watch… but maybe not tonight. Best Interests of 2023, about a distraught mother battling NHS doctors who decide to allow her seriously ill teenage daughter to die, was warm, miraculously funny and as gripping as a thriller can get. It was also so traumatising that it could make the viewer feel as if they were in actual physical pain. Before that, there was The Accident, whose matter-of-fact title only hinted at the harrowing subject matter: the series dealt with the aftermath of an explosion at a construction site in Wales that killed eight children.

Toxic Town (Thursday 27 February, Netflix) – Thorne’s new four-part series – could be considered a companion piece to The Accident: it’s also about a deadly construction site and negligent financiers. The difference is that this one actually happened. You may never have heard of the Corby toxic waste case of 2009, but it was a legal milestone – the first time a link between toxic waste and birth defects was properly established anywhere in the world.

Stars: Aimee Lou Wood, Robert Carlyle, Rory Kinnear

But before we get into the earth-shattering premise, a brief history of Corby’s industrial heritage is in order. Until the late 1970s, the town was a steelmaking hub; after the steelworks closed, residents were promised a redevelopment and the site was gradually cleared. When Toxic Town begins in 1995, the so-called clean-up process is in full swing, with construction workers incentivised to remove the dusty red “sludge” as quickly as possible in open-top trucks that spill the noxious substance virtually everywhere.

When we discover that our two protagonists are pregnant, it’s clear that the atmosphere is filled with poisonous particles. We first meet Susan (Jodie Whittaker), a shrill, unpleasant woman who was raised in Corby and speaks with a thick Glasgow accent (another rather disconcerting little local detail is that a large number of Scots moved to the East Midlands city to work in the steel industry, with their descendants retaining the accent and culture). Whittaker brilliantly channels the kind of abrasive personality who loves to make others uncomfortable, as does our second protagonist, sweet Tracey (a wide-eyed Aimee Lou Wood, as usual), who is cruelly informed by Susan that she has been farting loudly all night in the labour ward. But it’s all a facade really: despite her rebellious nature, we quickly realise that Susan has a heart of gold.

That heart is about to take a beating. Susan is shocked to discover that her newborn son has a limb difference and is destined for a childhood filled with pain and surgeries. Meanwhile, Tracey’s daughter is born with serious health problems after a near-fatal birth. The former’s numb bewilderment and the latter’s elemental anguish are impeccably played by both actors.

The fact that all this happens in the opening episode makes for an emotional climax very early on. The legal battle that follows is tense, but its technicalities aren’t exactly riveting, while the infighting at the council is hard to follow and also rather dull. Whittaker lights up the screen reliably, but at times it feels like her visceral, nuanced performance is stranded in a cardboard cutout of a social justice drama. Scenes often seem jarringly functional (crucial expository conversations taking place on walks without context, for example), while others are riddled with cheesiness or cliché – a birth that begins with a woman’s waters suddenly breaking on the kitchen floor (unlikely in reality, ubiquitous in film and TV) could be forgiven – but the latter is a bit of a scatterbrain. two just makes me lazy.

I must admit that spotting all these dramatic stereotypes breaking magic while scratching my head at Corby's curious lack of accent assimilation in youth was a useful distraction from the harrowing real story behind the series. If, like me, you're rarely in the mood to be emotionally torn apart by Thorne's devastating dramas, then this series' lack of believability and tendency toward boredom actually lets you off the hook. Toxic Town transforms a painfully sad tale of infuriating injustice into something that's almost bearable to watch.

Watch Toxic Town 2025 Tv Series Trailer