I can understand RTD wanting to write a state of the nation piece and highlighting a middle class family.
After all when things go rough, the middle classes tend to be unaffected outside of the margins. Here RTD does not leave them unscathed.
Stephen Lyons has lost everything including his home. He has to move in with his grandmother and now works in the gig economy to make ends meet. His wife Celeste also has several jobs but their relationship is not as rosy as it used to be.
Come to think of it. The Lyons family are not really that likeable and really a bit dim. Daniel cares more about the plight of his boyfriend and belatedly realises that his sister is an expert in how to get Viktor out of the Ukraine.
However I do have issues as to how Vivienne Rook is being treated here. I understand he wants to chart the rise of some kind of monstrous politician who breaks the rules. However RTD gets the basic facts wrong as to how the arithmetic of a parliamentary election works as well as electoral law. You cannot claim having your own channel puts you outside the boundary of UK election laws.
The trans-human story does not work at all. In the first episode it was supposed to be the mind leaving the body, not it being augmented to be some kind of cyborg.
I hate to say this, but I found the writing to be sloppy in the third episode and just a little bit dull.
