Years and Years: A show for our world

 After really loving the Davies era of Dr. Who, I decided to seek out other works of his. It was then that I found a recent project of his, Years and Years. Like so much of Davies' work, this show captures what media  should do but rarely does. It probes our world and is not afraid in making the viewer uncomfortable while doing so. It also somehow juggles a dark cynical portrait of humanity while never losing faith in our capacity to be better. It is a special show I could not recommend enough. 

In this series, Davies casts his net wide as he touches on things like technology, immigration, and the rise of fascism. His treatment of technology is fascinating as in many ways it could be read as a repudiation of the popular Black Mirror. While that show almost always shows technology as a force that will end up destroying our lives, Davies prefers a more nuanced portrait. A character seeks to be transhuman, meaning she wants to merge with a computer, and this character ends up being one of the most sympathetic and heroic characters in the series. Indeed, her merging with the computer seems to truly help become the person she wants to be. Additionally, a dramatic climatic plot point hinges on how technology allows us to spread the word of atrocities in a way that would be otherwise impossible. At the same time, we see technology is not only good as the camera frequently lingers over kids being more immersed in their phones than one another. By doing this, Davies avoids spoonfeeding one message to the viewer as instead the viewer must ponder for themselves what technology means to them and how do they use it.

Davies also fully looks into the issues of immigration. Perhaps one of the most visceral scenes in the miniseries is of a crowded mob trying to board a boat and the resulting drowning. This scene really brings home to the viewer the danger immigrants encounter when trying to find a better life. The show also shows immigrants holed up in prison camps far from the populace's eye. What Davies is doing here is forcing the viewer to consider the lives of the unseen and to realize that just because something is not around us every day does not mean we should just ignore what is going on. 

Where the series also shines is its look at the allure of fascism and how fascism rises up. The show bravely shows likable characters happily supporting the fascist politician, Vivien Rook, because she taps into their fears and somewhat apathetic attitude to the world. One might go "oh well I'm not apathetic" and to that I say "how many of you really are aware or care about the recent coup in Myanmar." Some of you reading this certainly do but I would wager many of you don't (oh look. Now I am making my reader uncomfortable. Good!)  Additionally Davies shows seemingly sensible characters, ones on the far left, just refusing to vote because they want to "shock the system" which albeit in a more indirect way leads to Rook being elected. This is a truly poignant commentary on those who get so wrapped up in making a point that they forget there are greater menaces out there waiting to feast on complacency and a belief that nothing bad will REALLY happen. We saw this in 2016 with those who voted third party or refused to vote which likely helped Trump get elected. As Davies highlights, by acting as if the system can never work, people are guaranteeing the system will never work. 

Yet despite these dark themes, Davies retains his faith in humanity. At the end of the miniseries, Davies emphasizes that the resistance to fascism is the work of many, not just our leads. By doing so Davies is firmly rejecting the Carlye "great man" theory of history and instead painting a picture of the importance of community. Indeed like so much of his work everything is grounded in family and love. Characters make incredible sacrifices for one another simply because of the love they feel. The central Lyons family is made stronger by how they support one another even as things get increasingly bleak. Davies is essentially arguing that no matter how awful the world is, we can always form ties with one another and that these ties can help us accomplish great things even if we are just common folk. This might sound like obvious messaging but think of how much of media, especially the incredibly popular MCU, glamorizes things like superpowers and individual strength. To reject that is a radical statement. 

Years and Years is a bold ambitious show. It seems to have been largely ignored by many of the awards committees which is a crying shame. Media should not just give us pats on the head or present escapist fantasy. Years and Years asks us to truly examine our world and not just take the things we see, or don't see, for granted. As one character piercingly observes when we do that it is "our fault" that the world is not a better place. Unlike so much of modern media, the show asks us not to blame anything "other" but rather to embrace that famous Shakespeare quote "the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars/ But in ourselves."