Years and Years: The Miniseries

As readers of the site may know, I’m of the opinion that Years and Years, the 2019 British miniseries, is one of the seminal television events of our time. My weekly reviews of each episode from last year can be found by clicking on my name in the byline.

Suffice it to say, I think writer Russell T Davies created his magnum opus, a masterpiece that managed to encapsulate all the fears of the modern world into one of the most beautifully envisioned near-futures in science fiction history.

Daniel Lyons (Russell Tovey) and Viktor Goraya (Maxim Baldry) attempt a risky escape. (HBO/BBC)

The basic concept is to follow the rise of a fascist dictator, played to perfection by Emma Thompson. The casting of a well-known icon of the left as a conservative dictator works beautifully. Davies doesn’t write and Thompson doesn’t play Viv Rook as a monster; that would be too easy. Instead, Davies and Thompson craft a deceptively charming “woman of the people.”

In the early episodes, Davies insightfully shows Viv playing the part of a buffoon on television so she can reach a mass audience and win them over. Only once Viv has power is her bottomless evil fully exposed – most memorably in a showstopping monologue in Episode 5, which Thompson plays to chilling perfection.

If Years and Years were just the Viv Rook miniseries, it would already be brilliant, but Davies’s masterstroke is that she only appears in two full scenes, with perhaps 10 total minutes of screen time. The rest of the time she is a figure on televisions.

The Lyons family gathers on an evening that will change their lives. (HBO/BBC)

Those televisions are being watched by the actual protagonists of the show, the Lyons family, a perfectly average middle-class Manchester brood. The two scenes in which we actually meet Viv happen because members of the Lyons clan are present.

Davies succeeds in crafting a family of such fascinating complexity and depth in part because he attracted the best television actors in England to play each of the leads. Any of them could carry their own series – and many have done so. For more details on the complex and layered Lyons family, check out my episodic reviews.

By the time the six episodes have drawn to a close, Davies’s ordinary family has experienced joy and suffered unspeakable tragedy. They have shown true heroism and yet nearly been torn apart. By its conclusion, Years and Years reaches a place of absolute transcendence, passing beyond being just a critique of our present world to become a true statement on the human condition.

Years and Years: The DVD

Warner Archive’s DVD set.

The DVD of the miniseries, which was recently made available by Warner Archive, has a few unfortunate failings.

Years and Years has been given a barebones release, without extras of any kind. This is disappointing, as it would benefit greatly from commentaries and making-of documentaries that explore how the future world of the show was created. Unfortunately, no such content was created for the British home video release last year, and Warner Archive has clearly been limited by that.

It’s also unfortunate that the series has not been released on Blu-ray in the United States – or indeed anywhere in the world – since it was filmed and broadcast in HD. Though a few popular TV series have made their way to Blu-ray, sales of TV shows on physical media are nearly dead, and DVD still (somewhat surprisingly) outsells Blu-ray, so we’re left with Years and Years only on DVD.

In addition, this isn’t a pressed DVD. Like most of Warner Archive’s releases, it’s a burned DVD-R, which are believed to have shorter shelf lives than pressed DVDs (and some machines have trouble playing them). Alas, this is standard for Warner Archive titles.

Celeste Bisme-Lyons (T’Nia Miller) breaks into a secure computer system. (HBO/BBC)

The biggest issue is that this is a British series, and British television is filmed for broadcast in PAL. For those who aren’t aware, most of the rest of the world uses the PAL television standard, whereas the States uses NTSC. It’s not worth getting into a discussion of the relative merits of each, but it comes down mostly to the fact that we have different electrical currents.

To make a long story short, theatrical movies run at their native speed of 24 frames per second (fps) in NTSC. By contrast, PAL runs at 25 fps, requiring movies to be sped up for PAL, resulting in what is known as “PAL speed-up.”

Many video buffs, including me, avoid PAL home video releases of films because the 4% speed-up (and resulting audio pitch shift) can be hugely distracting. Most Europeans have grown up with this and don’t even notice it.

Edith Lyons (Jessica Hynes) leads a revolt. (HBO/BBC)

As for British TV, it is actually filmed at 25 fps, so it can be broadcast at a natural speed. However, this causes a problem when British TV shows make their way to America, where they must run at 24 fps.

In the pre-HD era, the solution was simply to convert the PAL master to NTSC. As a result, each frame would be a muddy mix of two frames, causing the dreaded “soap opera effect” – an unnatural video-like smoothing. Anyone who has watched old British sitcoms or dramas on PBS will recognize this.

In the HD era, the solution has been different. British TV shows are run in America at 24 fps, 4% slower than intended. This is the exact opposite of the PAL speed-up of theatrical movies. The slowdown causes British TV shows to run a few minutes longer here in the States, makes the motion onscreen appear a bit slower, and drops the pitch of the audio, giving everyone deeper voices.

Bethany Bisme-Lyons (Lydia West) and Fran Baxter (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). (HBO/BBC)

If you’re just seeing the series for the first time, it may not be noticeable, though it does rob the series of a tiny bit of energy. If, however, you saw Years and Years first in its original British format, as I did, the speed change can prove distracting.

It’s a shame, especially since Warner Archive had absolutely no other option for U.S. home video – American machines won’t play PAL. Alas, even the episodes streaming on HBO are the slowed-down versions (we checked and compared). However, if you really want to watch this miniseries at its original speed, you can buy the PAL British DVD from the UK (link here). It can be played on almost any computer (or region-free DVD player).

Grades:

• Miniseries: A+
• Video: B (miniseries was shot and broadcast in PAL HD but is only available in SD, slowed down by 4%)
• Audio: B (due to PAL/NTSC pitch shift)
• Extras: N/A