IN REVIEW: YEARS AND YEARS: SERIES 1 – EPISODE 3

Synopsis: Daniel reveals a dangerous plan, and Bethany’s obsession leads her into terrible danger.

Review: The third episode of Russell T. Davies’s drama moves into 2026.

The Story

Stephen and Celeste are still reeling from having lost over 1 million pounds of their money to the crash of all the major banks. Stephen is doing five jobs in order to try and keep the family afloat while they are living at his grandmothers home but is also having an affair.  Added to that their eldest daughter Bethany is about to spend a huge sum of money on some rather dodgy transhuman surgery for her and her best friend, which is destined to go horribly wrong for at least one of the girls.

Meanwhile, Daniel is moving heaven and hell to get Viktor out of Ukraine and back in a neutral territory where he can have a chance of asylum.

The political situation becomes even more unstable when Viv Rook winds up being the balance of power in another hung parliament between Labour and the Conservative party.

And new technologies featured in this week’s episode features a ready meal made out of synthetic meat, which puts poor Rosie and six members of her staff out of the job. We also get introduced to the Orange Burger, which is made out of  orange peel. And we also learn about a new form of cremation, which dissolves the human body into fluid as opposed to burning a person’s remains.

The Acting

Emma Thompson takes things up another level this week as her character of Vivian Rook decides that voters in elections should have to undergo an IQ test where if they do not score above 70%. They will be refused the right to vote.

Jessica Hynes gets a few fun scenes in which she infiltrates a Government building and steals information for one of her old anarchist friends.

Overall

This is another great episode in which we see some of the cracks begin to show in the Lyon’s family unit. Especially during the scenes where we see them all casting their votes in the General Election. With only three episodes and a few more years left to see. I look forward to seeing how things begin to wrap up in the next three episodes.