Cliff Notes – Netflix quietly adding ‘absolutely breathtaking’ drama perfect for Black Mirror fans
- Netflix is set to release the dystopian drama "Years and Years," created by Russell T Davies, which follows the Lyons family over a 15-year period amid global and technological upheaval.
- The series features an A-list cast, including Emma Thompson and Rory Kinnear, and has received critical acclaim, boasting an 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
- "Years and Years" explores contemporary issues such as politics, technology, and identity, while maintaining a tone of warmth and humour despite its serious themes.
Netflix quietly adding ‘absolutely breathtaking’ drama perfect for Black Mirror fans
Netflix is hours away from adding an ‘absolutely breathtaking’ dystopian drama to the streaming service.
If you’ve already binged Charlie Brooker’s seventh season of Black Mirror, this next show will have you covered.
Years and Years, created by Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies, aired on the BBC in 2019.
Starring an A-list cast of celebrities including Emma Thompson, Rory Kinnear, Russell Tovey, Lydia West and Jessica Hynes, it follows the lives of the Lyons family as they face tumultuous global and political affairs.
Focusing on the Manchester-based family over a 15 year period, between 2019 and 2034, it shows them battling against the problems technology brings.
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Nanny McPhee actress Emma plays successful businesswoman and politician Vivienne, who divides the public with her controversial opinions like voters needing to take IQ tests and saying she ‘doesn’t give a f**k’ about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Netflix is hours away from dropping a dystopian BBC drama (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Guy Farrow)
Meanwhile, Rory, Jessica, Russell and Ruth Madeley form the Lyons siblings, all dealing with their own family dramas as well as the drastically changing technological landscape they find themselves in.
At one point, Rory’s character Stephen and his onscreen wife Celeste (played by T’Nia Miller) get to grips with their daughter Bethany (played by Lydia) saying she wants to identify as transhuman and turn herself into data.
Despite the world around them disintegrating, and raising important issues about technological advancements, immigration and attitudes towards asylum seekers, and global politics, Years and Years shows a family at the heart of it all.
‘Even when the world is going to s**t, you still drink, you still make love, you still laugh, and you still text people. Even though terrible things have happened you can still relate. Even as we go through this terrifying world you’re still part of a family,’ Russell previously told Metro.
Russell Tovey hoped viewers could relate to the terrifying series (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Guy Farrow)
The synopsis for the series teases: ‘Years and Years, by Russell T Davies, is an epic saga that takes an ordinary family and catapults them through the next 15 years.
‘As society changes, faster than ever, the Lyons will experience everything we hope for in the future, and everything we fear.
‘They’ll fall in and out of love and grow old, fall apart and come back together, while constantly looking forward.
‘Each episode propels us a year or two ahead, following the lives of Daniel, Stephen and his wife Celeste, sisters Rosie and Edith, Gran Muriel and the family’s children, as they navigate a world made unstable by politics, the economy and technological advances.
Years and Years aired in 2019 (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Guy Farrow)
‘But this isn’t a dark, fearful show. It’s full of wit, warmth, and hope.
‘Years and Years is about family. It shows how we survive against the backdrop of a political world in which you can’t tell right from left any more.
‘The tone is fierce, funny, heartbreaking and, ultimately, shows one family’s determination to survive the future.’
The series has scored immense praise from fans and an impressive 89% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Viewers branded it ‘absolutely breathtaking’ (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Matt Squire)
Susan J said: ‘This was a fantastic series. I don’t usually like sci-fi or near-future but this was superb. I’m still thinking about it almost 4 years later.’
Another anonymous review read: ‘Sensitive to contemporary politics it is heartwarming and horrifying at the same time.’
Someone else called it ‘brilliant, must watch,’ while another simply said: ‘Impressive. That sums it up.’
‘A very realistic and therefore terrifying cautionary tale of where we might be going in the near future. Or, Black Mirror done right,’ another person wrote.
Creator Russell T Davies said he’d been thinking about writing Years and Years for more than a decade (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Guy Farrow)
Viewer called it ‘One of the most brilliant series I’ve ever seen,’ while someone else said: ‘Great show. Think Black Mirror meets This Is Us.’
‘Brilliant and fresh! Absolutely breathtaking,’ another fan said.
‘Tough viewing but riveting. Like a Black Mirror episode with more heart,’ someone else anonymously wrote.
Creator Russell previously spoke about how he’d been thinking of writing Years and Years for more than a decade, saying: ‘It’s been boiling away in my mind for a long time, but over the past few years the world itself seems to have been boiling faster and hotter and wilder than ever.
The show explores the dramatically changing landscape of politics and technological advancements (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Matt Squire)
‘I mean, the age, today, just seems fevered – we’re either more political, or more scornful of politics, than ever.
‘And I think, in the past, politics meant the economy to most people, but now we’re seeing that it’s our identity at stake.
‘So I had to write this fast, before someone else did! And we’re transmitting it as fast as we can before the stuff in the script actually happens!’
When asked how far we are in reality from the world he created, he added: ‘I can guarantee that the real world will always be stranger, madder, darker, but hopefully better than anything we can predict.’
Years and Years will land on Netflix on Sunday, April 13.