Netflix Releases First Look at Jodie Whittaker in 'Toxic Town'

Netflix initially announced Toxic Town in August 2023, during the height of the dual writers-actors strike in America. A U.K.-based series focusing on the real-life Corby Toxic Waste Case, it could technically go into production right away since it would be under the U.K.'s Actor's Equity and Writer's Guild of Great Britain. The press release also touted the casting of star Jodie Whittaker, who had recently announced her retirement from Doctor Who after three seasons, making the series a potential first release since leaving the TARDIS.

Filming started almost immediately in 2023, with the rest of the cast announced a few weeks later; however, Netflix's tendency to hold fully completed series until the following year kept the show on the back burner. The whole of 2024 came and went with nothing to report on the series, but with a confirmed 2025 release date, Toxic Town is now back on the menu with the series' first image.

The new series will cover the case from the perspective of three of the mothers at the center of the class action lawsuit filed by the families of 19 children born with deformities caused by toxic dust from a former steelworks in Corby, Northamptonshire. They successfully got the Corby Borough Council found negligent in its waste management. After 11 years of fighting, the council finally agreed to pay, though to this day, it denies liability.