YEARS AND YEARS

In the Lyons’ Den

UK BBC One, Tuesdays US TBC Showrunner Russell T Davies Cast Russell Tovey, Rory Kinnear, T’Nia Miller, Ruth Madeley

“Our Friends In The North, but moving 15 years into the future”: a brilliant pitch you’d think had been done before. But no, Russell T Davies is the first to plant his flag on this territory.

Kicking off in 2019, then leaping to 2024, part one of his family saga efficiently introduces likeable Manuncian clan the Lyons and establishes the tone, which mixes bewilderment at the state of the world with down-to-earth domestic drama – a scene that signals cracks in Daniel Lyons’s relationship via a spat about washing your hands seems characteristically bathetic.

Thanks to a strand about a Lyons kid’s desire to become “post-human”, it’s actually more science-fictional than it’s been sold as, but generally seems very low-key. Then Davies ambushes the audience, dealing a narrative gut-punch that’ll leave older viewers thinking of another Northern near-future drama.

You could question the plausibility of certain events. Will everyday folk own household robots in five years’ time? Could Ukraine’s political situation really alter that much? But prediction isn’t the point – it’s showing how ordinary folk deal with extraordinary change. And we can’t wait to see what life throws at the Lyons next. Ian Berriman

Anne Reid (gran Muriel) is one of the few to star in old and new Doctor Who (“The Curse Of Fenric” and ”Smith And Jones”).

Going on Chat Roulette was a mistake.