Jill Halfpenny, the EastEnders and Three alum whose raw intensity has long made her a British television force, is poised to deliver her most harrowing role yet in Girl Taken, a six-part psychological thriller premiering on Channel 5 in January 2026. Adapted from Hollie Overton’s 2022 novel Baby Doll, the series has already earned buzz from early screenings as “2025’s most disturbing must-watch,” blending suffocating tension, shocking twists, and a career-defining performance from Halfpenny that critics are calling “gut-wrenching and unforgettable.” Much like BBC’s Thirteen, which plunged viewers into the trauma of captivity and survival, Girl Taken explores the shattering aftermath of abduction—not just the escape, but the lifelong battle to reclaim a stolen self. For fans of slow-burn suspense and emotional devastation, this rural-set saga of twin sisters torn apart by betrayal is the chilling antidote to holiday cheer, promising to linger like a bad dream long after the credits roll.

At its fractured heart, Girl Taken follows identical twins Lily and Jenny (both played by Halfpenny in a tour-de-force dual role), whose unbreakable bond is forged in the quiet isolation of a small English village. When 16-year-old Lily vanishes during a late-night walk home from a party, the town rallies behind Jenny, the surviving sister who channels her grief into relentless searching. Days turn to weeks, hope to despair—until Lily reappears, disheveled and silent, rescued from the home of the community’s beloved science teacher, Mr. Hargrove (Mark Bonnar, Line of Duty). What follows isn’t triumphant reunion but a suffocating unraveling: Lily’s fragmented memories reveal a nightmare of grooming, captivity, and psychological torment, while Jenny grapples with survivor’s guilt and the town’s insidious whispers that perhaps Lily “asked for it.” As the sisters piece together the truth, their once-mirror-image lives diverge into a maze of therapy sessions, suppressed rage, and buried secrets that threaten to consume them both.

Halfpenny’s performance is the series’ searing soul. Switching seamlessly between the vibrant, pre-abduction Lily and the haunted, armored Jenny, she captures the twins’ synchronicity with eerie precision—shared laughs that echo like ghosts, mirrored gestures that now mock their fracture. “Playing both was like holding two versions of the same shattered mirror,” Halfpenny told Radio Times. Her Jenny is a powder keg of quiet fury, channeling EastEnders‘ Kate Mitchell grit into a woman who weaponizes her pain against a system that failed her sister. Bonnar’s Hargrove is chillingly unassuming—a pillar of the PTA with a smile that hides rot—evoking the predatory normalcy of The Night Of‘s Naz Khan. Supporting turns from Eve Myles as the twins’ grieving mother and Daniel Mays as a skeptical detective add layers of rural realism, grounding the thriller in the claustrophobia of small-town judgment.

Created by Overton (The Walls, The Devouring), Girl Taken isn’t just abduction drama—it’s a scalpel to survivor’s trauma, echoing Thirteen‘s Ivy Moxham in its unflinching portrait of PTSD’s long shadow. Episodes build like a tightening noose: Jenny’s therapy breakthroughs clash with Lily’s dissociative blackouts, Hargrove’s trial unearths village complicity, and a final twist redefines “rescue.” Directed by Kate Dolan (You Are Not My Mother), the series’ misty moors and creaking cottages amplify the dread, with a score by Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker) that hums like suppressed screams.

Early viewers are obsessed. Test audiences raved to Channel 5 execs: “Halfpenny’s dual role is genius—it’s Orphan Black meets Room with British bite.” Social media previews tease: “Binged the pilot—can’t shake Jenny’s rage” (@ThrillerThirst, 20k likes). With Overton’s feminist lens on victim-blaming and sisterhood’s limits, Girl Taken arrives as a timely gut-punch in the #MeToo aftermath, proving trauma thrillers thrive when they honor the mess.

Stream from January 2026 on Channel 5 and My5; for Wolf Hall and Downton devotees craving something sharper, this is the rural reckoning you’ve been waiting for—jaw-dropping, addictively beautiful, and utterly unmissable.