Years and Years on BBC1: How a Chilling Family Drama Makes the Future Feel Scarily Close
Why Years and Years Hits So Hard
If you think the world is already on thin ice, "Years and Years" on BBC1 might keep you up at night. This six-part series, crafted by Russell T Davies—the mind who brought "Doctor Who" back into fashion—doesn’t just imagine a wild future. Instead, it stares straight at today’s worries and asks, "What if things just got worse?" And then it shows us, step by step, exactly how that could look by following the everyday life of the Lyons family in Manchester all the way to 2034.
We meet the family in 2019, watching the birth of baby Lincoln. At first, it all feels typical—siblings joking, Gran making her dry comments, everyone trying to make sense of big events on the news. But the ground starts shifting fast. Emma Thompson brings some real fire as Vivienne Rook, the blunt populist who crashes into politics, her "None of the above" catchphrase catching the mood of frustrated voters. She’s not your usual villain—she could be someone you’d see on real-life news, which makes her even scarier.
The Lyons clan cracks the future open from different sides. Daniel (Russell Tovey) works in housing and juggles a same-sex marriage that gets tested by real-world crises. Edith (Jessica Hynes) lives on the edge, fighting for causes as the activist sibling. Rosie (Ruth Madeley), full of grit and wit, faces barriers as a wheelchair user but never lets those define her. And then there’s Muriel (Anne Reid), the sharp-tongued grandmother who’s seen it all before, but never quite like this.
The younger generation isn’t shy about shaking things up either. Bethany (Lydia West) doesn’t just want to change her style—she wants to become "trans-human," blurring the line between person and machine. It’s a bold, sometimes shocking take on how tech might influence identity and family ties.
The World Feels Alarmingly Real
"Years and Years" earns its reputation for realism because it taps into what people are actually talking about around dinner tables—rising politicians saying wild things, economies trembling, refugees needing help, and a constant urge to click "skip ad" on the next headline. Several moments, like the global financial meltdown or the refugee crisis, could be ripped from tomorrow's news.
What makes the show hit even harder? It tackles darkness with touching humor. The family’s love and bickering—their resilience and flaws—keep things painfully human even as the world around them seems to tilt out of control. The Financial Times, in its review, points out how the mix of crushing events and everyday warmth makes all the scary stuff feel even more real. Seeing people argue over breakfast one moment and run for shelter the next drives home that catastrophe rarely feels cinematic—it’s usually painfully ordinary.
That said, not everyone’s thrilled with the whole run. Some fans on IMDb and elsewhere complain that the plot loses momentum in later episodes, going from tight, believable drama to territory that feels a bit implausible. A few lines of dialogue even get clunky. But most agree the opening episodes set a gold standard for this kind of speculation, especially when it comes to showing how "normal" can turn on a dime.
The show has been called a cross between "Black Mirror" and "This Is Us." That’s a pretty fair picture: high-concept speculation wrapped up in the messy joys and sorrows of a family. The big idea isn’t just that society is fragile, but that nobody realizes how fragile it is until some leap of technology, politics, or economics knocks everything sideways.
Standout performances rule throughout, especially Thompson’s chilling Rook and Reid’s biting, heartfelt Muriel. That mix of big ideas and messy family life is what makes Years and Years feel so much like a wake-up call—and so hard to look away from.