Acorn TV's 'The Crow Girl' Is a Series Worth Crowing About

What happens when you mix Broadchurch, Criminal Record, add a dash of Killing Eve, and a healthy dose of Eve Myles? You get Acorn’s newest crime drama, The Crow Girl, one of the refugee shows from Paramount+'s very short-lived U.K. division. Based on a bestselling Swedish novel by the same name by Erik Axl Sund, The Crow Girl has all the hallmarks of a British detective drama with a polish that elevates it to the top of the genre.

It was adapted for the screen by Milly Thomas, whose previous writing credits include River City and Clique. However, you may know her better for her roles on the other side of the screen in The Feed and Enterprice, and as a voice actor in Doctor Who’s Big Finish audio dramas.

The Crow Girl stars Eve Myles as DCI Jeanette Kilburn, a laser-focused detective who puts her job above all else. An eerie case of teen boys murdered and left in public places leads Jeanette to Dr. Sophia Craven (Katherine Kelly), a psychotherapist who assessed a recently arrested pedophile with connections to the case. Sophia is haunted by the memory of a former patient, Victoria, who has mysteriously disappeared. Jeanette and Sophia share a single-minded focus on their jobs, and they become each other’s confidants. As they grow closer, so do their respective cases.

When not sneaking off to meet with Sophia, Jeanette works with an excellently cast team of officers. There’s her unserious but hardworking partner DI Lou Stanley (Dougray Scott), a young idealist (Elliot Edusah), no-nonsense superintendent Verity (Victoria Hamilton), and sardonic medical examiner Eva (Lu Corfield). Jeanette has a tumultuous home life that she frequently dismisses when duty calls. Her husband Alex (Raphael Sowole) is a struggling artist who is relatively hands-off with their young son. Jeanette’s father, Brian (Charles Dale), is a former detective and has far too many opinions about how she should do her job and raise her son.

There is technically not much new here when it comes to plot points and character archetypes. The Crow Girl features a crooked cop, a principled newbie on the team, a workplace affair, an unsolved crime from the past, and a spooky country house — all typical crime drama fare. But masterful pacing and performances keep it fresh and surprising. The dialogue occasionally suffers from clunky, genre-stereotypical lines, but fast pacing and strong acting smooth it over. 

A throwaway line in the first episode is a dead giveaway of a huge piece of the mystery, just one of several instances where the show lets the audience get a little too far ahead of the detectives. But even if you’ve figured 90% of it out by episode three, it’s well worth sticking around, if only for the acting. Myles’ performance in the final episode rivals Olivia Colman’s reaction to the reveal of the murderer in Broadchurch. 

Myles has come a long way since her days leading Torchwood, but her fierce determination and emotive eyes will be a familiar delight to any long-term Eve Myles fan. She is surrounded by a well-rounded supporting cast, too. Roger Jean Nsengiyumva is a standout who, despite very little spoken dialogue, gives a fantastic performance as Amar, a young refugee caught up in a cage-fighting scheme.

The series has just short of too many characters to follow, but the pacing and eventual connection of their stories is deftly written. One such interweaving thread is obfuscated, taking place at an undetermined time to an undetermined young girl. This makes for some confusion in the first few episodes, but that intentionally misleading narrative is bread and butter for this genre. Rest assured, the matryoshka doll of the central mystery contains many more within, and all will be revealed. The final episode leaves a few dangling threads, but not to worry, a second season is already in the works.

It’s refreshing to see a female lead detective who doesn’t have to contend with sexism or harassment in the workplace. Jeanette is able to investigate violence against women and girls with particular sensitivity because she is a woman, but she is not underestimated or mistreated by her colleagues or members of the public because of her gender. That shouldn’t feel like a big deal in 2025, but many recent detective shows with female leads (PBS's D.I. Ray and BritBox's Code of Silence come to mind) often rely on didactic examples of women overcoming adversity. In The Crow Girl, any criticism Jeanette faces is warranted from her own lapses in judgment, not misogyny. 

Is that unrealistic? Maybe, but it makes for a satisfying watch. The Crow Girl’s gasp-worthy cliffhangers and stomach-churning incremental reveals will have you reaching for the next episode again and again. After a game of streaming service hot potato where it seemed like the series might never make it to the US after all, viewers shouldn’t let The Crow Girl fall through the cracks. 

The Crow Girl premieres on Acorn TV on Monday, September 8, 2025, and will continue with one new episode a week through mid-October.