The thing about Years and Years (BBC1), Russell T Davies’s short guide to an unstable near future, is that it is all too plausible. And, thus, engaging and terrifying, in equal parts. Not just the idea of a President Pence (with Trump still pulling the strings), who is referred to in passing; or a Farage-style populist winning elections (Emma Thompson’s icy charlatan Viv Rook); or that America and China might come close to an all-out nuclear war. But also that the adolescents of the future, will be part-human, part Huawei smartphone. This is because their mobiles are so much a part of them, as we see now, that they actually start to have the components, called “skinplants”, installed in their bodies. So that the internationally recognised gesture people do to indicate being on the phone becomes a reality, with a thumb as the earpiece and little finger as a mic. Still, I guess that means no one can ever nick it.Even the primitive love robot, Keith, who we met in the first episode last week was believable, though his sexual technique probably needed refinement. I’m looking forward to seeing how Keith 2.0, the next generation, gets on with pleasuring his master.From extras.The story of the 2020s is told through the extended Lyons family, already introduced to us at some length in the opening episode. Baby Lincoln is still too young to be able to take much interest in what’s going on, but his uncles and aunties certainly do.Take Auntie Edith (Jessica Hynes), an eco-warrior who, from a beach in Vietnam, witnesses the detonation of a thermonuclear device that Donald Trump lobs at Hong Sha Dao in the final days of his second term of office. This is one of those artificial islands the Chinese are building in the South China Sea for purposes of projecting power, intimidating its smaller neighbours and territorial expansion. (Put like that I suppose you can sympathise with Trump, but I’d better let that thought rest there.)The rest of the world doesn’t agree with Trump and hits the US with unprecedented sanctions for its “aggression”, with consequences that will soon be visited upon the Lyons family. It’s all told with the usual devices of made-up television news reports and the like. And, after Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and all the rest, the Years and Years team have plenty of recent archives of devastation to draw upon.