David Mills: Why ‘Years and Years’ is the show of 2019

Emma Thompson’s electrifying performance as a populist anti-immigration politician is just one reason to watch the compelling new drama Years and Years, writes David Mills.

How many TV shows pull you in – like, really grab you – from the very first moment?

In the first 60 seconds of Years and Years, the new six-part series about to hit SBS, Emma Thompson’s character, an outspoken populist politician, says something so provocative on a TV panel show I can pretty much guarantee you will do a double take.

At the same time, the other main characters are watching her on TV, and they too do a double-take, life and art imitating each other almost simultaneously.

It’s a clever moment; the first in a series that is full of them.

Soon after, Years and Years references the May death of Doris Day, firmly placing the show in 2019, and in the world we live in right now. (The show made its UK TV premiere the day after the Hollywood star died, making it another double-take moment for viewers.)

But before long, the story jumps ahead five years, and further into the future in each subsequent episode – but only as far as 2034, so the world it depicts remains believably real.

Thompson’s electrifying performance as a pollie on the rise tracks slightly off-centre but occasionally intersects with the main narrative, which focuses on the four adult siblings of the Lyons family in Manchester, their partners, children and elderly grandmother.

Emma Thompson as Vivienne Rook in the new series Years and Years. Picture: SBS

The show takes the concerns of 2019 – how technology is changing us, the emergence of populist leaders, faltering economies, tensions between the US and China, Russian aggression, Brexit, the plight of refugees, climate change, the increasing distrust of science – and relentlessly bulldozes them forward.

These issues impinge on the lives of the characters in ways that can be utterly harrowing.

It is a thoroughly compelling and frightening vision of the future. And as with Charlie Brooker’s terrifically dystopian Black Mirror, it is a vision that frightens because it feels so plausible.

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In one of the first episodes, one of the characters talks about having an open mind regarding a theory gaining currency that germs aren’t real. It’s preposterous, but given the ridiculous fallacies of the anti-vaxxer movement, it feels like exactly the sort of idiocy that will encroach on public discourse in years to come.

The series was written by Russell T Davies, who brought Doctor Who back to TV in 2005 after a long hiatus, and Davies revisits a few concepts he touched on in that show. (Fans will also spot a number of Doctor Who alumni in key roles.)

Years and Years boldly projects what could be in store for our world – and what it means for individuals. Picture: SBS

I call Years and Years “the TV show of 2019” because it’s the program I have personally found most engaging this year, but also because it reflects the troubles and anxieties of our times so perfectly.

The world has seemed bleak before, of course, as two devastating world wars and the annihilation of 9/11 more than amply prove. In the early 1960s the world held its breath as the Bay of Pigs incident threatened to climax in a nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR. And in the 1980s the fear of nuclear destruction was again strong, expressed in popular culture of the time (the films The Day After and War Games; the song Russians by Sting).

But right now, it doesn’t feel like we’re dealing with one thing; it feels like we’re dealing with everything. Terrorism. Climate change. Existing wars, and the threat of many more. Danger is everywhere.

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As an aside: I always thought Game of Thrones, with its multiplicity of threats, was a pretty good analogy for the modern world. Sure it had dragons, and great narrative twists, but it also tapped into the idea that the world was scary and unpredictable, and in that way it was incredibly zeitgeisty.

Emma Thompson’s character rises and rises during Years and Years. Picture: SBS.

The same can be said of Years and Years. We live in a time when people are so concerned about the future they are choosing not to have babies. Others are so convinced that we have entered a final chapter for the human race they are joining groups like Extinction Rebellion, or boycotting air travel, or buying “apocalypse-proof” bunkers in New Zealand, if they’re rich enough.

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Prophets of doom have been warning that the end is nigh for millennia, but it seems that more people are starting to believe it. And let’s face it: at some stage those prophets of doom are going to be absolutely right.

If that all sounds incredibly depressing and alarming, I’ll finish with the wise words of my Nan, who used to saying “Nothing ever turns out exactly the way you expect.”

I have found that to be absolutely true during my life.

So it’s a fair bet the future won’t pan out exactly as Years and Years suggests. But as a reflection of the anxieties that plague us right now, it is devastatingly accurate.

Episode one left me gobsmacked. Episode four broke my heart.

Don’t miss it. From the first 60 seconds, you’ll be hooked.

Years and Years premieres on SBS on November 6.

David Mills is a columnist for RendezView.com.au @DavidMills1972

Originally published as David Mills: Why ‘Years and Years’ is the show of 2019