However you label it, ‘Years and Years’ is fascinating

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What’s happening now? Members of the Lyons family try to catch up. (Image: via HBO.)

Other than saying that Years and Years is a relatively new show on HBO, co-produced with the BBC, it’s hard to know what to call it. For now, I’ll just call it a near-future drama.

The first episode—which aired in the U.S. at the end of June, though I saw it only a couple of days ago—takes us neatly, in its opening section, from something like the present to a few years in the future. It places in the foregro...