The British mini-series “Years and Years, 2019”, shot in such a genre of fantastic drama that is not very familiar to me, is rather even a dystopia about the near future, about what awaits Britain, the background is also echoes from other countries, shown through the history of one family. Everything begins in our days and ends somewhere in the early 30s of our century. The family consists of four already adult children, grandchildren and grandmother. At first, they seem to live quite well, but gradually the well-being of both the family and the whole country begins to fall apart. Refugees come to Britain in an endless stream, including from Ukraine, 97% of which voted for Russia, and the rest are forced to flee, because they are persecuted, in particular, for homosexuality, with new communists coming to power there. One of the brothers is just dealing with refugees, the second works as a financial analyst, one of the sisters travels around the world with various protests and is engaged in charity, the second is disabled from birth, a wheelchair. The family is quite motley in composition - one brother is homosexual and even enters into same-sex marriage, then it turns out that one of the sisters is lesbian. The other brother is married to a black man. We see how digital technologies develop, but the problems of people practically do not change, their well-being collapses, someone dies, political passions rage around, and those who come to power use the same methods that were once used by their distant predecessors during the Boer War. Eventually, there is an explosion. As my grandmother said, “Wait for the next one.” Getting rid of one monster means the next one wakes up in his cave. I want to say that despite some irregularities in the plot, I liked the series.
It’s a little scary what the show says about the things that are happening to us right now, some of the things that were predicted, and it’s 19 years old, and that makes it creepy... it can really happen. It is clear that this is an exaggeration, but goosebumps from this
Beware of these people - jokers, cheaters and clowns. Let's laugh to hell.
Series 'Years' Honestly, it's the best, almost the best thing I've seen in a year. It shows the most ordinary at first glance life of the English Lyons family. All action begins from 2019 until 2030. And each episode cheerfully leads us through the retrospective of time and shows how rapidly the world is changing, how the main characters are changing under the next top-notch laws and rules.
I felt like it was some kind of black mirror restart. Everything says this: the utopia of the near future, the atmosphere, even the cast is the same, as if a long-standing team specially gathered and starred together for this project. All the characters are textured, alive. They showed everyone and told us about them. I wonder how all of them, so different are one huge family. This is interesting to see because there are conflicts and misunderstandings between generations and genders.
I was repulsed by one thing, which until now I was delaying the viewing. This is the main theme of the series – politics. I didn’t really talk about it or go into it. And how close it was for me to feel what the main characters were fighting and saying. I can only tell you the point, as I remember, the news was boring. No one was paying much attention. Not everyone watched the news and the whole world did not go crazy. Now, what now? Yes, every second watches them, because everything that happens in the world will sooner or later affect you, whether you like it or not. The world went crazy, and we created all the intellectual power of technology, and we went backwards and started to degrade.
I liked the way the creators realistically, albeit slightly hypertrophied, showed it. That transhumanism would reach enormous proportions – perpetuating itself in the digital world while completely denying and abandoning its physical shell. All these innovations have a frightening effect on reality. I felt the same when I learned that YouTube was going to introduce a metaverse, for example.
Of course, this is a step forward, but at the same time it is a weapon.
The series shows situations that happen every day. I like the idea, how not quite 'standard' the family copes with difficulties and lives in parallel with the future that is shown there. I liked the full picture of non-classical attitudes and how the world calmly perceives changes in social roles and gender. Of course, there are reproaches and injustices in the face of the older generation, but this shows us that there will always be those who are for and those who are against. Personally, I can't imagine a completely neutral opinion 'I don't care' It's always yes or no.
I will separately highlight the musical accompaniment. That's a stretch. It is rather one big siren, with a mush of instruments, devoid of any harmony. An ode to panic, that's how you describe it. It is this performance that best conveys all the hysteria and anxiety for ourselves, for our relatives, for the whole world in which we live. Mini series, as I like. Briefly and everything. I think there's a lot to think about. I also want to add that I started watching this series carefully before the large-scale changes that occurred in 2022. I will say that in some way the series became prophetic.
8 out of 10
Do you want to see the future? Not where we fly on skates or have already gone to live on Mars, but this, as close to reality as possible, a little morose, but alive?
First, I love utopias and dystopias. Second, I’m in love with an old woman, Anne Reed, who seems to be 180 years old and is incredibly fresh, honest and good in any role. Around her heroine is Murriel, the matriarch of the family, as in my opinion, the plot of the series is built.
The series is very lively, events are included instantly and all of them: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the monkey flu, natural disasters, the food crisis, immigrant concentration camps, even the explosion of the atomic bomb seem completely logical, and despite all the horror even somewhat ordinary. It’s as if it’s not a TV series, but news from the near future. 'We built such a world' tells us Grandma Murriel and how right she is!
While I would have preferred a darker ending, overall I enjoyed the series, moreover, this is a case where it just needs to be revisited later to see more details.
The series is not new, and I intended to watch it for a long time, so to speak. However, the political component was somewhat frightening, which, despite the fact that it was put on all the posters, turned out to be only a background for family history.
It is necessary to look, because about life, about morality, about the fact that one must always be a person. Or not?
I started watching the series with great pleasure. The first series perfectly immerses you in this alternate world, interesting to watch and want to know what will happen next.
We are introduced to a fairly large family of Lyons, and despite the scale, the creators manage to keep the focus on all the characters, and moreover, each of them is really interesting to watch, except Lincoln, and here’s why.
The series itself begins with the birth of Lincoln, and in all the next episodes you expect that his / her line will develop, because in movies and TV series there are no shots and heroes shot for beauty, but I watched the whole series and I still don’t understand why this character was at all? Even more inappropriate is the fact that the creators did not understand who they wanted to show us: a boy or a girl, maybe a third gender, an undecided gender? It looks very strange against the background of the fact that the series has a sufficient number of characters who have a non-traditional sexual orientation, but it looks real, they are concisely fit into the plot, it looks good, and does not raise any questions. But what was Lincoln for, who said 10 words for the whole movie (and I'm not kidding), who absolutely doesn't move the plot forward. It felt like the creators had done a good job of all the characters, and Lincoln just didn’t care, and to balance inclusivity, he was also made an unconventional character. But why, if there are other characters already, and well written and worked out, I never understood. And the second downside of the series is how it slides dramatically into the finale of the fifth series. It's such a tough and rough turn off-the-top that I just freaked out. Watching this series, you have to accept that this is an alternate universe, although it tells about our years and the very near future, but before the 5th episode, each move was logical, it is logical in the universe you tell us, you believe in it, and then BAC!, and some almost cosmic technologies appear. And it destroys absolutely the whole world that the creators built for 5 episodes. Even when one of the characters made a total upgrade, well, with a creak it can be accepted, but what she does next, is somewhere beyond fiction.
I watched the series simply because there was only one episode left, and without much interest. And as I expected, the finale of the final series is not in any frame.
The series began very well and cheerfully, but exactly until the end of the fifth series, where everything turned out wrong. Very, very sad.
Not all series about the future, even with a clear socio-political orientation, can be called prophetic. Vanga from the creators of the series “Years” also turned out not very, but, in general, “Years” is not a prediction or even a warning, it is a visualized irrational fear of Europeans before the collapse of Western civilization, Western democracy as the best form of their life under the onslaught of modern barbarians – political buffoons and populists. What begins as a stylized motley “Santa Barbara”, to its conclusion turns into a serious and deafening drama, after which there is a noise in the head that cannot be let go, which makes you think again and again. We can only rejoice that the fears and fears of the creators of the series before the stupidity of the human, most likely, groundless, and the "Years" themselves for years to come will remain only fiction.
“Years” is interesting not so much for its socio-political agenda, but for its chosen style, when the story is about the life of the most ordinary British family against the backdrop of a changing world, which is paid just as much attention as it affects the lives of ordinary people. However, to talk about the Lyons family as an ordinary is not completely true - this is also a symbol, and, as an affirmation of the importance of the family as a basic building block of society, and its embodiment as a whole. Lyons are like a slice of modern society in all its diversity: there are blacks, and a girl with disabilities, and LGBT, and an activist, despite all the differences, peacefully living together, tightly connected and loving people. “The Years” clearly traces how the relationship between people and politics has changed over the course of a decade: for example, at the beginning of the story, its influence is limited to the debate about Donald Trump and the occasional discussion of his likeness in the skirt of Vivien Rook, but then life begins to change, and the consequences of change will affect the Lyons directly, whether it is lost forever health, lost trading license or barbed wire on the streets. In the first series, politicians only argue about something on television, but in the last one, someone from the family confronts Vivien Rook personally, as if drawing a line, leaving behind the time when you could say: “I am out of politics.”
The remarkable change in Hun Shadao, when the Lyons family is first directly affected by the irresponsible decision of the rulers, can be considered a trigger, but not the real beginning of a shift in Western society, as Stephen rightly says, arguing that it all began earlier. Indeed, the very fact that the tragedy happened, that on-screen Trump was able to implement his decision, suggests that the system-forming, most important system of checks and balances – the main thing that protects democracy from idiots and buffoons – began to break, which is now only embodied in reality. Emerging here and there, Vivien Rooke, although similar to Trump in the manner of behavior, is a collective image of a dangerous populist, concentrating hatred and fatigue in himself, pandering to everything base in any society. This is unlikely to be supported by a reasonable majority, but someone will support, which is also shown in the life of the Lyons, who put far from the same crosses on the ballot, including for the Hand. The embodiment of such slaves, subject to influence, citizens becomes Rosie, shouting about the breakdown of the system, for some reason passionately desires it. But her protest is not for something, it is a protest for the sake of protest, and it is unlikely that people like Rosie could explain clearly why to break the working democratic system, and what they would like to build instead.
A common thread here is the idea that one of the most important human rights is freedom, closely linked to the basic and inalienable right to life. That's what turns this irrational fear of authoritarian insanity into hope, because Years is about a Western society where everyone, with their mother's milk, absorbed what self-esteem is, about a society that was free. You can turn the country into a concentration camp by covering the sky with barbed wire, you can press, and people will retreat. Step back, and again, because it’s easier. But self-respecting people cannot retreat indefinitely, they will not tolerate disenfranchisement, and the next step back will be followed by forward movement. Pressure will breed resistance, whether overt or underground, violent or peaceful, and the greater the need for freedom and respect in society, the more massive the movement will be. It's interesting that the weapon of protest is information, publicity, rifles are being confronted by mobile phones -- in a once free country, it works -- truth is winning over violence. However, it should be borne in mind that the authoritarianism of Years, built on the ruins of democracy, has preserved some functioning democratic institutions, and here the police are independent and committed to the law, and, although this is not emphasized in Years (apparently, its independence for filmmakers is silenced), this fact is key to the success of everything shown on the screen of the enterprise. I also note that, despite the personal participation in the events of the Years of the Lyons family, it was emphasized that the events were of a mass nature, which means that the Lyons were one of many, not the only and not chosen: society was ready, and there were many such “Lyons”.
In addition to a strong dramatic component, a well-defined story about people’s lives against the backdrop of a changing world, “Years” has the coolest acting work. Although there are many characters in the series, the actors have a lot to play, separately I want to highlight Lydia West and her character Bettany, who in these six episodes have come a long way from an infantile teenage girl with crazy ideas to an adult reasonable woman ready to take responsibility and make difficult decisions. However, this role is the most interesting, but each of the others is equally fulfilled with dignity, each actor gave his best, and each hero experienced a serious transformation and evolution. The cast in “Years” is very strong, very played and looks organically on the screen, despite all its diversity.
For a long time, the series did not produce such a deafening, knocking down effect on me. Yes, it is fantastic, it is the assumption that people are stupider than they really are and politicians are irresponsible, that democracy in Western society is unsustainable, which is also not true. But this is an observation, an assumption that can save the situation, and the answer is still the same: democracy, its basis, laid in the people themselves and not destroyed by any violence. There is only one cure for unfreedom: the need for the freedom of the majority, the intolerance of society to lies and violence, which cannot be absent in countries with a rich history of fighting for civil rights. The series is over, I like its ending – it logically completes the story, but it is still an ambiguous point, and if necessary, you can continue, although I doubt the need for such a continuation.
I don't want to see anything in this horrible world.
Of course, the series is clearly not an ordinary phenomenon of modernity. There is a lot of convention in it, this is certainly not a theatrical version of it, but it is glad that many viewers understand this, that in principle there are such people.
Excellent variants of political satire in the brilliant performance of the American film industry are known, in most of these works the accents are shifted more towards the entertainment component. The British series, although far from devoid of dynamism and not at all boring, but still it has the problems of trends in the modern world in the first place, while the balance is not disturbed and the series remains a feature film.
Perhaps none of the vices of the seemingly progressive processes of globalization, universal digitalization, if I may say so, did not go unnoticed by the creators. The monopolar world as the logical outcome of these processes is naturally opposed by the true human values that exist in reality. Ordinary human weaknesses, or even features that are not inherent in everyone, the corporate-political world uses as a target, acting through the substitution of concepts, lies, hypocrisy and total surveillance of everything and everything. This is how power is formed, for which the law is only a fig leaf.
Ordinary and vulnerable people just want to live, to be in harmony with the world and with each other. Several generations in one family fully experience all the advantages of progress, but to a greater extent they will be affected by the disadvantages. The series has a semblance of a kind of happy ending, but the creators sacrifice the lives of the main characters, but the victims are not in vain, a real drama, a great series, looks in one breath, while it stirs up the whole range of emotions. I definitely recommend watching.
Very good miniseries. A futuristic social drama about a British family living in the near future. In fact, some years have come and the authors have not guessed much. But the predictions for our crazy world are real. The series was created by an excellent team of directors and screenwriters, including Simon Sellan Jones (Space, Power in the Night City, Jessica Jones). A well-chosen cast (there is Rory Kinnear, who I really liked on Black Mirror and Scary Tales). Mega is dynamic and super saturated plot. An interesting presentation of material, when you literally rush through the years together with the family and dwell on some key and crisis moments. The film covers political and social issues through the prism of the psychological interaction of the ordinary European tribal community consisting of different families. Probably modern and socially active. Some of the members of the family are definitely higher in their activity average.
The main issues and themes that are raised in the series are: the role of politicians in shaping public opinion, aesthetic social moods, the impact of information technology on modern society, the problem of coexistence of emigrants and refugees in developed countries, naturally LGBT+, problems of employment during the crisis, problems of mutual understanding of generations, new forms of art, social and social problems of people with disabilities, problems with intellectual degradation of society, threats of international conflicts and wars due to superpowers, interrelationships, threats of global disasters, environmental problems, financial vulnerability of the middle class, and in general of any class, including because of rapidly developing technologies and all sorts of global problems.
Some ideas are very strange and unexpected. For example, the concept of trans, not as a transsexual, but as a trans person. But a trans person who not only becomes a cyborg, but generally transfers his mind into a digital virtual form.
The second part of the series slightly changes the futuristic social orientation and turns into a political thriller. Emma Thompson in the role of a strange politician just played very cool.
There's also a granny out there who occasionally gives out smart thoughts. I liked her final sentence about another of the weird British politicians: 'Beware of such people - pranksters, magicians and clowns. They will make us laugh to hell & #39; MD.
Of course, there is a certain life-affirming result. In all this madness, we can only be helped by faith in ourselves, faith in loved ones and, preferably, faith in something else just in case. Like love. The most important thing is to have personal and social responsibility. For we create happiness and not happiness around us. The finale was a bit too much with pathos.
By the way, a pandemic also appears in the series. Monkey flu in 2029. I don’t think there was anything serious going on.
And in the film a great musical range of dynamic and disturbing music, which creates a very correct mood.
I recommend it. If it was season 2, I would love to see it.
I will start with the fact that I do not watch TV series, from the word at all, but I decided to make an exception here, because it is small, each episode is about an hour, and short: only 6 episodes. Decided that the week by the hour is normal, if there is something similar to ' Black Mirror'.
What can I say? A little stretched, but the meaning, in general, is, in English - gently but clearly. The authors gradually bring the viewer to the conclusion that everything is in our hands, and only we ourselves can change the world, the Family, albeit such a diverse one, can help in this: it has a non-traditional orientation, and different races, and the disabled, and the rich, and the poor, and revolutionaries, and the inhabitants, but at the right moment they come together and together solve issues of both a family nature and a world scale. . .
Liked ' news of the future': the series is all based on news feeds, they are all very plausible and similar scenarios may well await us in the near future.
Not ' Black Mirror' of course, but a little bit like the series with the selection of the cartoon character from the mentioned series. . .
A wonderful series that I would love to watch with my kids. Honestly. But I will not look because of the too frank scenes of same-sex sex (oh, this tolerance) and a considerable amount of mat (although he is all that is called, ' in the topic ').
And this despite the fact that the family saga as a genre has never been one of my personal interests. And I could not imagine that it could be filmed so sparklingly, vividly, mesmerizing and even partially relevant (partly because many of the private problems raised in the series are interesting to the British, but we are on the periphery of social interest).
About the atmosphere ' Black Mirror' which managed to repeat in 'Years', many say. It's on the surface. 'Black Mirror' although it ended as a TV product, clearly didn't end as a cultural phenomenon. However, the atmosphere, the scenery is limited. 'Years' totally different.
Even the message of the series is different: if in ' Black Mirror' it is difficult to find at least some optimism, then ' Years', oddly enough, a very vital and life-affirming tape. Yes, there is a place of death (there is a lot of it in the series), but after all, death is always and everywhere in our lives, but this does not affect our ability to have fun, joke and breathe fully. 'Years' just about that. No matter how terrible, hard and suicidal it is for humanity, people will survive, cope and continue to seek their happiness (although it is not at all certain that they will eventually find it).
However, what exactly this confidence is based on is unclear. How not quite clear where to expect ' ray of light' in a society where the change of any values as an independent social process has become the most important value in itself. But I am one of those who would prefer to believe unreasonably in the good than unreasonably in the bad.
8 out of 10
I want to say right away that despite the fact that the series has some technological gimmics, this is not an analogue of Black Mirror. This series about something else is a left-liberal pro-globalization horror story designed to scare people and show what will happen if people continue to vote for Trump and Brexit. In the series there are suffering residents of a new world - a gay refugee from Ukraine, a girl who loves transhumanism and dreams of getting rid of her body and living in a computer, as well as ordinary people who suffer from the fact that a new order is coming.
On the one hand, yes, a person is always sorry, whether he is gay or not. On the other hand, watching this series now, when in the United States (and, it seems, in Europe too), another round of politically correct bacchanalia began with the kissing of boots, a monument, repentance for deeds that you did not commit (does not remind you of anything?), etc., remembering how, for example, the owners of the bakery were fined for not wanting to bake a cake for a gay wedding, you understand that there is no struggle for equality – there is a struggle for rights that stops only when the group is fought against, as a minimum, the activists will be in a worse situation.
In short, I want to cool down and remember that there is a line before which you need to stop and for which you can not intercede.
From the actors I want to highlight Emma Thompson – brilliantly played the female British version of trump.
The series will tell the story of an ordinary English family of Lyons, who in the near future will be destined to get into the whirlpool of life’s troubles. Wars, political squabbles, economic collapse and the uncontrolled development of technology are turning the world upside down. Will Britain survive this difficult time? And most importantly, can the Lyons survive? . .
British humor needs no introduction, and the satire of the British can often be called the best in the world. “Years” is a worthy representative of the genre, but not without sins. The series can be divided into three parts: at the beginning, the eyes run away from black humor and general hyperbolization of events, in the middle everything shifts towards family drama, and in the end the direction completely changes to unsuccessful heroism. Start "Years" so cheerfully that after you can not even believe how stupid they are deflated to the final. From delight to bewilderment, the path is short, but very bright - it is still interesting to watch from beginning to end.
Looking at the corner of the eye into the future will always be in demand among the viewer, and especially from the point of view of a completely ordinary family. The ending also steals the charm of the fact that the series is about ordinary people. Their transformation after an ordinary motivational speech looks tortured naivet in the manner of coaches of personal growth. The authors throughout the series tried to build a complex and multi-layered world, but apparently did not understand how it works.
The impulse to the trends of “equality” sometimes drives the plot to some madness. Racial diversity is no surprise, but the number of characters with non-traditional sexual orientation is beyond reasonable limits. Having a gay, lesbian and transgender family is statistically almost impossible. Why this was necessary is completely unclear. If we had a second season, no one would have been surprised by some more exotic cousins.
“Years” is a series with a great idea, but a very controversial implementation. Black humor, absurdity and sometimes believable fantasies about the future are some of the best reflections on our world order with rich soil for independent conclusions of the viewer. It is a pity that so many interesting ideas are overshadowed by stupid and tasteless fiction, as well as a thoughtless desire to please everyone and everything.
7 out of 10
In the series, all modern vices of society are so hypertrophied that no character arouses any interest, understanding, or anything. Except for disgust. You can't call it a drama because there's no one to worry about. You can’t call it a comedy because there’s nothing funny. Like fiction, too, is a variant of a morally decaying society. The series has a big problem with the plot. There is usually an atmosphere of the past/present/future, and these are the main characters whose fate you are watching. And the quality of the director’s work, the writer and the actors depends on how quickly you immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the series. It’s just a set of circumstances that hasn’t been perceived as a whole since the beginning of the series: OK, some weird family, OK. Who's that? A couple of homosexuals, let's say. Some strange birth... Why? Politicians-- Why? This is a refugee camp... For what? Meaning? Just a data set... What's that for? I have never seen a series with such a high rating.
"The Years" (2019). I stopped watching not because of the story, but because of how it was shot. Why such speed, why so many curves depicting feelings? No, it didn't.
Although the series is billed as 'drama' it is a black comedy from the beginning to the last episode. Watching it is quite funny, only periodically you have to suppress the gag reflex. The beginning is frankly not exciting, but from the second series there is interest. Here mercilessly ridiculed cliches ' tolerant' cinema, in fact calls for the perversion of normality, the denial of moral values. The global defamation of politicians who somehow try to save humanistic values is mercilessly played out. The authors joke about what remains in our world depressingly little: marriage ties, reasonable obedient children, a healthy society, orderly and prosperous life. Play the tired in dozens of tapes slushukaniya gays, the praise of interracial marriages. Hard merciless ridicule protrudes from all the cracks and realize that ' in every joke only a fraction of a joke'.
Other advantages: high-quality shooting, good picture, bright musical accompaniment. Most of the actors have fulfilled their roles. In general, the game of Tnia Miller and Emma Thompson looks especially good. The work of make-up artists is commendable, they managed to reliably show the age changes of the characters.
There is almost no science fiction as such in the series, other than implanted implants and breath identification. The authors did not particularly try in this regard. Then they went through the clichés and clichés. One example: the Russian army (of course called Soviet troops) is occupying Ukraine, persecuted and unexpectedly numerous Ukrainian gays are forced to save their lives and flee to the other end of Europe, almost swimming storming the English Channel. There are no heroes in the series, only template social roles.
The main conclusion I made was to turn on the TV less.
The line from the old song very accurately describes the speed at which 15 years pass in the new series “Years and Years”. HBO and the BBC fantasized about how the world could change starting in 2018. After watching only 6 episodes per hour, you will learn all the fears of the average resident of the UK on the example of one family.
Don't worry, I'm not going to give away the show's key plot twists. I will only say that the “gray cardinal” of all major events is the extraordinary politician Vivien Rook performed by Emma Thompson. The actress embodies a truly primitive fear of the conservative inhabitants of Mist Albino with her chic play. Most recently, they survived Brexit, exhaled after Scotland’s attempts to gain independence and are now cleaning up the consequences of the influx of refugees into Europe.
It is the immigration collapse that runs through the whole plot. If the first episodes captured me with excellent narrative dynamics, bold assumptions in political and economic terms, then the topic of immigrants began to spoil the impression of viewing. I am not familiar with the need to change the place of residence, but the way it is presented in the series is annoying.
In the family, which is the center of attention, except for the “immortal” grandmother, there are no normal characters. No, the actors perfectly convey the characters of the characters, especially T'Nia Miller. But the authors demonstrated tolerance, completely discredited the institution of family and healthy relationships. I’m fine with gender liberties, but when the scenario turns into “saving a homosexual Victor from Ukraine,” there’s less desire to see common sense degenerate. Technological innovations and geopolitical changes take a back seat. Only under the curtain are we delighted with an unexpected twist and edifying monologue that we have created the future we deserve.
I'm sorry that the big "tolerant" minus spoiled the cool idea of looking 15 years ahead. This is an excellent opportunity to warn people from rash actions.
In a nutshell, imagine that the conditional episode ' Black Mirror' did not end, but continued on six rabid, event-filled episodes. This is the new British show from Russell T. Davies, the same screenwriter ' Doctor Who' who revived the cult sci-fi series in 2005.
The creators decided to show us one of the options for the near future from a rather large Lyons family, depicting almost all layers of modern society: an old woman who survived from the mind, abandoned in her youth with three children, and a pregnant girl with a disability and a young son, and a teenage girl experiencing typical problems of socialization, and a young gay man in a long-term relationship, and a cardboard-perfect couple, and a feminist activist, and a refugee devoted to power by her parents. Everyone has their own views on politics, they argue quite reasonably, but at the same time live in peace and love with each other.
In parallel with their measured life, in Britain and around the world, there is a frenzied division of power, accompanied by changes in the political system, etc., which is embodied by the heroine of the beloved Emma Thompson - a radical politician, famous for her harsh statements on the air.
Unlike the previously mentioned Netflix show, here you are not thrown into some doubtful future, a la a possible 2068. No, here, literally, today, slowly lead to the abyss, and most of the time you are in shock at how close this abyss is, how quickly ' House of Cards' collapses. But at the same time, people live with the same problems, succumb to the same vices, and there is no feeling ' detached fiction', everything feels quite clearly, as if it is inevitable.
If the first episodes played on your shock of an alternate future, then the second half of the season enjoys an acquired love for the characters, moving the series from the level of political statement to the level of dramatic work. In the finale, we are clearly formulated the main message - each of us is part of a large organism of society, and only our decisions are the causes of our problems.
Yes, the end of the series is a little blurred, gaining such great momentum at the beginning, the last series sharply slows down and cuts off the narrative, which loses the sense of completeness. The final scene is generally torn out of the narrative - trying to tell her something intelligible about the importance of the family, the creators slipped into a solid image of the messiah, repeating incoherent thoughts about love, peace and memories, which, of course, spoiled the impression.
Despite this, 'Years' actually a pretty good demonstration of the results of indifference, and accordingly inaction, of a society accustomed to acting only in a state of crisis. In this exaggerated form, the series simply reminds that every nod of agreement with the injustice that is happening is a path to even more chaos.
June of the nineteenth year was marked by a pair of TV Events (with a capital letter), born feathers of two of the best screenwriters of our time. Sally Wenwright presented an excellent dramatization of Anne Lister's diaries, "Gentleman Jack," and RTD's bone-riddled dystopia of "Years and Years." The music for both, by the way, was written by Murray Gold, familiar to everyone from Doctor Who, Cucumber, Second Coming and Last Tango in Halifax.
In many ways, "Y&Y" resembles the best episodes of "Doctor Who", "Turn Left", "The Stolen Earth". "Utopia," "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords," with the only difference being that RTD is now not limited to the series' children's ratings and can speak directly, shifting neither the blame for the disaster nor the responsibility for the rescue to magical alien forces. It is written about people and for people, in all their wonderful and monstrous diversity.
World history, at the very beginning, based on real events (Brexit, political bias to the right and far right, totalitarianism, etc.), develops with terrifying plausibility, the 20s of the XXI century largely mirror the events of a century ago. It is in these turbulent times of transition that we find the Lyons family, led and united by the magnificent Muriel. The political changes we will see through the eyes of four siblings, Stephen, Edith, Daniel and Rosie, three of whom (Stephen, of course, does not count) live in their own heroic lives.
But we cannot hide behind their backs. The writer is constantly contacting us directly, waiting to be involved in the dialogue. He doesn’t flirt with nationalism, he doesn’t complain about the “populated”. Europe of refugees does not participate in “listen to both sides”, does not whine about “better sociopath in power, but stable”, but openly and rationally considers the situation, expecting from the viewer no less frankness, at least with himself. Recalling the Boer War and the concentration camps, he ridicules blind patriotism and fears the cyclical nature of history. The famous motto “If you are not ashamed of the history of your country, then you do not know this history” in various forms appears more than once or twice throughout the series.
With these mono- and dialogues, RTD turns a mirror over the viewer and asks with participation whether we are satisfied with what we see. The theme of freedom, awareness of his influence on the world and taking responsibility for this influence was always in his works, in Y&Y it only takes its peak, shining form.
With such a text, of course, it would be a crime to play badly, so it is not surprising that caste is exceptional. Jessica Hines finally waited for a truly starring role, which could be given completely. T’Nia Miller plays incredibly complex, layered and sincere. Lydia West gave the world a real heroine capable of resisting the powerful, and Russell Tovey and Maxim Baldry – a painfully tragic story about the unfulfilled. Not to mention Anne Reid, who illuminates every project she participates in.
To say that "Y&Y" combines all the best that is inherent in the work of RTD would be an unforgivable understatement. In her and rage, and frustration, and powerlessness, and consolation, and hope, and love. There are no measured or passing series, there are not even just calm, each requires undivided attention, concentration and empathy.
In short, to paraphrase Nabokov, good material requires a good, thoughtful viewer.