The Family, Generation and Kinship in the Television Series Years and Years

The TV drama series Years and Years (BBC/HBO, 2019), written by Russell T. Davies, is a speculative narrative that imagines a dystopian near-future (2019–34) which is clearly informed by then- (and still-) current concerns in the UK and wider world. This article considers the series’ reimagining of discourses of the family and kinship. Placing at its centre the multi-generational Lyons family, a collective marked by queerness in a variety of ways, Years and Years interrogates the normative discourse of the family and represents new forms of kinship, with technology playing a key role in this reimagining of identities and relationships in the near future. However, the series is ultimately ambivalent about the possibilities inherent in the technological mediation of human kinship. Instead of fully exploring these possibilities, it ends up reaffirming the importance of familial solidarity and love, something that is part of the normative discourse of the family that the series in other ways seeks to challenge. Ultimately, while representing new forms of kinship, Years and Years stops short of de-centring the family but rather, invites us to think about possible forms of kinship that may bring about a different future.