'Toxic Town' Will Spill at the End of February

Netflix has traveled far from the company's original ideals when it launched House of Cards in 2013. Back then, the streaming service was all about the prestige TV game and greenlighting ambitious series no one in their right mind would have agreed to, such as agreeing to six seasons (sight unseen!) of a show on the still-ruling monarch of the U.K. with three full casts changing every two seasons. Now it's in bed with the WWE and has gone so deep on reality fare that it's come out the other side with shows like Celebrity Bear Hunt. However, the streaming service still boasts one of the most robust budgets aimed at the small screen, and sometimes it even puts that money to good use, like with Toxic Town. 

Based on the real-life Corby Toxic Waste scandal, the series, written by Jack Thorne, brings aboard an all-star cast to play the real-life people who were instrumental in bringing justice to the family affected. Using the stories of two of the women who were part of the lawsuit and agreed to have their names used in various newspaper stories at the time, Susan McIntyre and Tracy Taylor, as a jumping-off point, the series dives into the town council's decision in the early 1980s to bulldoze over the land once used for steelmaking in Corby. With the company town's employer shuttered and thousands of tons of toxic waste left over in large settlement ponds, the council leaders (led by Kelvin Glendenning) had raced to convince the local government to fund the clean-up operation to save the town from economic collapse from lack of employment. However, instead of using the money to clean the waste properly, the council took multiple (horrifying) shortcuts and lined their pockets.

By the mid-1990s, the town was newly famous in the area, now not for steel or its radical clean up, but as the place for birth defects, usually children born with undeveloped hands and feet. Eighteen families banded together and, with lawyer Des Collins leading the charge, sued the council for its actions. Over the next six years, they found themselves unsuccessful in the courts until 2004, when whistleblower Sam Hagen smuggled papers from the council meetings and slipped them to Collins. It took another four years, but in 2008, the women finally won their court battle.

Here's the series' synopsis:

Based on the real-life story of one of the UK’s biggest environmental scandals, Toxic Town is the story of the people at the heart of the Corby poisonings. Focusing on the mothers, who took on a David and Goliath battle for justice, the series traces through the years of their fight as a terrible truth comes to the surface.

The four-part series features an all-star cast ensemble, featuring Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who) as Susan McIntyre and Aimee Lou Wood (Sex Education) as Tracey Taylor. Rory Kinnear (Ridley Road) plays lawyer Des Collins, Robert Carlyle (COBRA) is whistleblower Sam Hagen, and Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey) is "Roy Thomas" who stands in for Glendenning. The other families are played by Claudia Jessie (Bridgerton) as Maggie Mahon, Joe Dempsie (Get Millie Black) as Derek Mahon, Ben Batt (Van der Valk) as Pat Miller, Stephen McMillan (Boiling Point) as Ted Jenkins, Lauren Lyle (Karen Pirie) as Dani Holliday, Michael Socha (D.I. Ray) as Peter McIntyre, Karla Crome (Am I Being Unreasonable) as Pattie Walker, Matthew Durkan (Wedding Season) as Marc Taylor, Toby Eden (Shardlake) as Connor McIntyre and newcomer Kobi Sadler as Young Connor.

All four episodes were written by His Dark Materials scribe Jack Thorne, with director Minkie Spiro (Three Body Problem) helming all episodes. The series is produced by Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ Black Mirror outfit Broke & Bones, with Jones executive producing alongside Thorne and Spiro.

Toxic Town will premiere with all episodes on Netflix on Thursday, February 27, 2025.