Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Tower’ On BritBox, A Police Mystery Involving A Middle-Aged Beat Cop, A Teenager, And Neighbor Harassment

One of the graces of British miniseries like The Tower is that they don’t take any more time to tell its story than they need to. The new BritBox miniseries, an adaptation of Kate London’s novel is three episodes, clocking in at about 2 hours and 15 minutes total. It seems to be about the right length to unravel this mystery, one where a veteran cop and a teenage girl end up dead, even with some of the narrative gymnastics writer Patrick Harbinson uses to tell it.

THE TOWER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “21 April. 6:31 PM” A call comes in about a teenage girl and a police officer, both dead after falling from a 20-story apartment building. Two detectives are in their car speeding toward the scene.

The Gist: The detectives, DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) and DC Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola) are part of the Metropolitan Police’s Division of Special Investigations (DSI), called to the scene because a police officer was involved. At the scene, veteran beat cop PC Hadley Matthews (Nick Holder) and 15-year-old Farrah Mehenni (Lola Elsokari) are still where they were found, their bodies lying in pools of blood.

On the roof, Collins finds rookie PC Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif) and 5-year-old Ben Stoddard (Rex Parry). Adama was Matthews’ partner and she saw the entire incident unfold; she’s in shock, and her boss, DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett J Scanlan), wants to keep the DSI folks away from her. So, against procedure, he sends her home before Bradshaw can question her. Soon after, Adama takes off and leaves few clues as to where she’s gone.

Ben is the son of Claire Stoddard (Sally Scott), who lives next to the Farrah and her family. We see flashbacks to nine days before the falling incident on the tower, where Adama and Matthews respond to Claire’s report that Farrah’s father, Younes (Nabil Elouahabi), has been threatening and harassing her. When the cops ask her for proof, she shows them a video of him keying her car. When they come back to arrest him the next day, he runs; Adama tries to gain the trust of Farah to help in the effort of getting Younes to give himself up.

When Collins finds out that Farrah’s father is in a holding cell, she goes to get him released because of his daughter’s death. She then finds out that Adama was the arresting officer in Younes’ case, and she starts to question exactly what went on on that roof. She wants to put out Adama’s name and face so she can come forward, but Shaw warns her off, telling her that Adama is a witness in a sex trafficking case against a dangerous organized crime figure. As far as Shaw is concerned, Farrah had a screw loose, kidnapped her neighbor’s kid, and dragged him onto the roof of that tower, where Matthews gave his life to save him.

But something’s not adding up to Collins, including the fact that Farrah’s cell phone was never found, and Shaw searched the cops’ lockers while the tower call was ongoing. Shaw tries to get Collins’ boss, DCI Tim Bailie (Karl Davies) to get her to back off, but the best he can do is suggest to Collins that’s she’s under personal stress since the breakup of her longtime relationship. When Collins eventually finds Adama, though, all bets are off.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Tower was created by veteran producer Patrick Harbinson based on Kate London’s novel. Harbinson has definitely crossed two of his previous shows in style and vibe: The ongoing mystery feel of Person Of Interest with SVU-style police procedural work.

Our Take: We usually don’t love a timeline that jumps back and forth, but in the case of The Tower, it’s useful because it shows the friendship between Adama and Matthews, as well as set up the harassment case they were pursuing against Younes Mehenni. The first episode only hints at the fact that there’s much more involved in the case than what we’re seeing, and both cops and Shaw, their boss, are involved in covering up whatever it is. Seeing Collins pursue this case, even in the face of Shaw and Bailie discouraging her from going forward, is an intriguing storyline.

Will Collins’ personal stress, where her former significant other leaves her to have a kid with someone else, be a part of this? Not sure. That’s the only part of the first episode we were scratching our heads about. Sure, Bailie and others can use that knowledge to try to sideline Collins, but that part of the story seems like it’s been minimized in the adaptation. Given the relative brevity of the miniseries, it seems like that part of the story can be eliminated without taking much away from the mystery.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: We see Shaw with Farrah’s cell phone. Why he has it, we don’t know.

Sleeper Star: Scanlan, who plays Shaw, is a good foil for Whelan’s intensity as Collins. Shaw seems to be one of those characters who is mostly a good cop who is morally compromised for reasons not completely under his control, and Scanlan plays that ambiguity in his character well.

Most Pilot-y Line: Because the Mehennis are Muslim, it does feel like Harbinson is teetering on the bad side of the “Muslims = crazy” line a little too much. Given some of the other shows he’s worked on — 24 and Homeland in particular — it’s an issue we’re sure he’s had to deal with in his career.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Tower does a good job of telling its central mystery without a lot of filler, and Whelan’s performance as Collins is both intense and emotional.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Tower On BritBox