'Toxic Town' Opens With a Slick Pair of 1990s Era Episodes

Toxic Town is the story of the Corby Toxic Waste case, a landmark court case dubbed “the British Erin Brockovich” that has now spawned a swift, pacy Netflix miniseries that borrows not just from the formula of the crowd-pleasing Julia Roberts film, but also the 25 years of media about environmental injustice and class action lawsuits that we’ve seen since. The significance of the case – ten years in the making and the first to establish a link between atmospheric toxic waste and birth defects – cannot be overstated.

However, while the sterling talent attached to Toxic Town (written by Jack Thorne, starring Jodie Whittaker, Aimee Lou Wood, Claudia Jessie, Rory Kinnear, and Robert Carlyle) commit to the outrage and heartbreak of these ordinary people's inhumane treatment, it’s a little too slick and digestible in comparison to powder kegs like Todd Haynes’ Dark Waters or the economic Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

Episode 1 begins before the historic 2009 ruling – in 1995, long after Corby’s run of being a central industrial hub ended with the Conservative government closing Corby Steelworks in 1979. To curb the eventual 30% unemployment rate, a series of EU grants and redevelopment plans went into the town, including a reclamation project of the former steelworks site to make the land usable for future business. This is where toxicity comes in – the council’s handling of the project was shambolic, negligent, and corrupt, and no proper safety measures were adhered to when toxic dust was transported from the steelworks.