Yesterday it happened: I canceled a meeting with a friend in order to stay at home and watch the series. In one gulp. And when I canceled it, I was horrified: for the first time in my life, I preferred virtual reality to the joy of human communication. Actually, the heroes of the series “Years”, which made them literally stick to the laptop screen, also become victims of technology to some extent. However, this is not their most serious problem.
The Lyons family are typical representatives of the modern cosmopolitan world: several generations, several skin tones, different political views and beliefs. We meet them – diverse, strange, friendly – in 2019, they have 15 restless years ahead of them.
Over the years, the world will change, but not at all in the way we would like. No teleportation capabilities, no jets instead of taxis, no food pods, nothing. There will be 6G, but the Internet will remain slow. It will be possible to print an entire village on a printer, but freedom of movement in large cities will be limited: entrance to some areas is only with passes.
A cup of coffee will cost 12 pounds, but few people can afford it: many professionals will be replaced by programs and people will lose all their savings overnight – just as it is happening now. Humanity itself, which seems to have already created everything it was capable of, will continue to confidently move along the path of degradation.
And the problems of the “world of the future” will remain the same: the housing crisis, refugees, the possibility of a nuclear strike, the war of revolutions that has swept the planet. Aptly named “The Black Mirror” of a healthy person, Years combines family drama and political statement and skillfully plays on the main fears of modern man. From the first frame, we find ourselves on a hook that drags us through all 6 episodes.
We ourselves are to blame for everything that happens to us. We allowed it. We have built such a world
Despite the difficult topics covered in the series, you get a complex, multi-story pleasure from watching. Emotional, visual, intellectual. On the one hand, the history of the Lyons family is universal: problems of fathers and children, secrets, misunderstandings, conflicts, betrayals.
On the other hand, what happens on the screen calls into question the very idea of limits, frames and edges. In the near future, implanting a phone under the skin will be as easy as getting a tattoo today. The next logical step is to digitize your personality and get rid of the mortal shell. Does it seem like it’s too much? But until recently, facelifts or gender reassignment seemed to many “brute force”.
Where is the line between “permissible” and “too”? The odious politician, whose coming to power will change the life of both the Lyons family and all other Britons, voices simple desires that are understood by the majority: to clear the sidewalks of cars, and the streets of “foreigners”, not to care about the problems of other countries until their own are solved, give the right to vote only to those who are able to think adequately. But what are we willing to do to get it? Which of the flapping of the butterfly’s wings will trigger a reaction with irreversible consequences?
This butterfly is not abstract – we ourselves created it and released it into the wild. This is the main idea of the story, voiced by the lips of the oldest member of the Lyons family: we ourselves are to blame for everything that happens to us – in the financial crisis, that cruel and greedy politicians seized power, that life became unbearable. It is much easier to blame everything on “the inexorable course of history, as if it is beyond our control, as if we are defenseless and too small,” but in fact it is our fault. We allowed it. We have built such a world.
But this means that it is in our power to change it, even if it seems that it is already too late.