Netflix's Documentary Now & HBO's Years and Years

Going to film school you are forced to watch movies beyond number. You sit through lecture after lecture about the French New Wave (which I still don’t understand), German Expressionism (I’m looking at you Eisenstein) and Italian Neo-Realism (please someone find my bicicletta). All this knowledge sort of sits in the back of your mind until you see something and exclaim...

Watching the first season of Documentary Now! gave me all the film giggles. Each episode begins with ever classic Helen Mirren luring you in with this sense of prestige and sophistication. Oh, what you actually get is something of different sort. Documentary Now! isn’t just for film nerds who get all the little jokes, it’s full of silly and down right side splitting moments. Fred Armisen and Bill Hader star in every episode, sometimes playing multiple parts. These guys jump all over time and place: mother and daughter who are shut-ins in dilapidated plantation home (Grey Gardens spoof), 1920s doc on the Eskimo (Nanook of the North spoof), searching for El Chingon (Vice/Vox spoof), and a small Icelandic town that celebrates Al Capone every year.

The show is backed up by great writers as well, Seth Meyer, Fred, Bill and Duffy Boudreau (Barry, Big Mouth). They not only pay homage to great cinema, but the show is so damn smart. The clues to what they reference are hidden gems laced through out every episode. So you don’t have to be a film snob to actually enjoy it. The humor is easy. It bounces between high brow and slap-stick.

If you like Bill Hader and Fred Armisen and good (I mean good) Saturday Night Live you’re going to love this show. If you’re a cinephile you’re going to love this show. If you liked This is Spinal Tap you’re going to love this show. Alas, as with most things not every episode is perfect (much like Saturday Night Live). Episodes 1, 2, 3 are probably my favorites. This show is an easy watch, grab some popcorn, a bingo card, and start laughing.

For a show about the future, Years & Years feels awfully familiar. This dystopian series starts exactly where we are about to go, with President Trump’s reelection right on the horizon. The Lyon family is living in the United Kingdom, going about their lives in the most banal of fashion. And in most respects, this is a fantastic way to start the series, because we are doing exact same thing in real life. Years, created by Russell T. Davies, is a join collab between HBO and BBC. And it has to be, in order to explain the brilliance of what Years is.

Like a Steinbeck novel, we meet the Lyon family. We have Muriel a boomer who is quite comfortable in the countryside. We also have Stephen who is a banker and his wife, Celeste who is the accountant. We also get Rosie, Daniel, Viktor and Edith. We are going to follow this family over the course of the next 30+ years.

At the end of the first episode the president drops a nuclear bomb on an island outside of China. The bomb is dropped over politics as usual, a land dispute that’s typical of the Chinese island strategy we’ve seen over the past decade. The world seems to be coming to an end, but as we find out later, China backs down, the United States wins… and there are consequences. Years makes a time leap in the future and we see the consequences have profound effects. One of those consequences is the rise of Vivienne Rook (played by the exceptionally incredible Emma Thompson), a Trumpian like figure who will literally say anything to stir the pot. iThe Lyons try and adjust to a changing world, for have a rough time doing so.

A central theme in the show is “what’s going to happen next.” During each episode, one of our protagonists will look towards the screen, break the fourth wall and ask the question. Then the series will jolt us forward in time. And as an audience member, we look forward to that time jump. It’s brilliant. This entire series is brilliant. Watch.