BritBox’s Bold 11-Part Crime Series Is a Masterpiece From Start to Finish

Published Sep 30, 2026, 12:11 PM EDT

Giovana Gelhoren is a High-Trending Topics Writer at Collider, covering the most-talked-about stars, movies, and TV shows. Before joining Collider, she was a Digital News Writer at People Magazine and served as Associate Editor at SheKnows, where she honed her expertise in celebrity coverage and entertainment journalism.

A proud Latina from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Giovana graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism and International Studies. She has interviewed countless celebrities, including Anne Hathaway, Halle Berry, Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brenda Song, and is known for her encyclopedic knowledge of film, TV, and pop culture.

While it might be hard to keep up with all the new and upcoming streaming platforms, BritBox is continuing to make a case for itself among its competitors. From enthralling Agatha Christie mysteries like Towards Zero and Murder Is Easy, to original shows like Ludwig and The Other Bennet Sister, the platform is bringing to its viewers the best of what British television and film have to offer.

Among the must-watch titles on the platform is The Tower, a three-season series that first premiered on November 8, 2021. The series, which boasts a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, was beloved by audiences and critics alike for three seasons before it came to an end. Now, it's one of BritBox's not-so-hidden treasures.

What Is 'The Tower' About?

Based on the 2015 acclaimed novel Post Mortem, written by former detective Kate London, The Tower is an eye-opening crime thriller that tackles much more than one central incident. The series, led by Gemma Whelan as Detective Sergeant Sarah Collins, kicks off when a shocking incident takes place in south-east London: a long-serving police officer and a 15-year-old Libyan refugee fall to their deaths from the roof of a tower block. The only people left on the roof are a five-year-old boy and rookie police officer Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif). But within hours, Lizzie has disappeared, leaving Sarah to figure out both what happened and where Lizzie went.

The mystery surrounding their fall from the tower becomes the starting point for a much broader story about policing, institutional problems and the complicated relationship between Sarah and Lizzie. Sarah is an experienced detective who is determined to uncover the truth, while Lizzie is a young officer whose actions on the night of the deaths make her a key part of the investigation. As Sarah digs deeper, she begins uncovering details that complicate the initial explanation of what happened on the tower roof.

'The Tower' Was a Critical Hit

Image via ITV

To this day, The Tower holds an impressive 100% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Its Popcorn meter score for Season 1, however, is significantly lower at 78%. Despite the discrepancy, it's clear that The Tower was an all-around hit with critics, with many of them highlighting the sharp direction of Jim Loach as well as Whelan's performance. "[Loach's] work here is solid, firework-free but also without the flabbiness that can hold back some police programs," wrote one review. "Whelan's performance as Collins is both intense and emotional," wrote another critic. From the reviews, The Tower is described as a tightly scripted, well-acted drama that, with only short three-to-four-episode seasons, feels like an extended film that keeps the viewer sucked into the mystery through on-the-ground investigation with the main detective, and revelatory flashbacks fill in gaps as clues are uncovered.

Despite the warm reception, The Tower was canceled after Season 3. "The Tower was much loved by the audience who watched the drama, but the viewing figures for the last series did not reach expectations so sadly, we won’t be recommissioning," a spokesperson told The Sun at the time, per The Independent.

Ultimately, while the original ITV series was cut short after Season 3, The Tower is a must-watch crime thriller. With a stubborn and determined main character, and a central mystery that covers an increasingly dangerous scope, the series is more than a crime series, and presents poignant reflections on crime, policing and the complicated lives of the detectives investigating it.

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  DS Sarah Collins

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  Jimmy Akingbola

  DC Steve Bradshaw

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  PC Lizzie Adama

• Emmett Scanlan

  DI Kieran Shaw