The grim, grey vision of a future Britain, as portrayed in the BBC’s 1977-1978 television series 1990, feels both remarkably prescient and quaintly off-kilter when viewed through the lens of our present-day reality. Created by Wilfred Greatorex, this dystopian drama, spread across sixteen episodes, depicted a United Kingdom suffocated by bureaucracy, where civil liberties are eroded by a pervasive, all-seeing government.
The show’s central figure, Edward Woodward, plays Jim Kyle, a journalist working for the ironically named “Free Press,” struggling to expose the corruption and abuses of power by the Home Office’s Public Control Department (PCD). Barbara Kellerman is the steely but ambiguous Delia York, a high-ranking government official, while Robert Lang appears as Herbert Skardon, a man of conscience who finds himself compromised by the system. Lisa Harrow is the Free Press’s editor, Lynn Blake, and Paul Rogers is the morally bankrupt Minister for Public Control, played with chilling conviction. In a Britain ruled by surveillance, where freedom of the press and personal autonomy are merely historical concepts, the series explores the ramifications of unchecked authority.
1990 got some things eerily correct. The pervasive use of surveillance is one example, while the show did not envision the digital age as we now know it, it did depict a world saturated with monitoring devices and where personal information was systematically gathered and processed by the state. The series also explored the chilling potential of propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion, a topic that is sadly, very relevant in our own day. The insidious nature of bureaucracy, the way it stifles dissent and dehumanizes individuals was also explored. The show correctly anticipated the ways in which governments might try to control information and use it to maintain power.
Of course, not all of its predictions have come to pass. The physical austerity of the 1970s, with its drab architecture and clunky technology, is not what we see in most of the Western world today. 1990’s Britain feels almost deliberately bleak, an aesthetic designed to contrast to the era in which it was made. The methods of control depicted in 1990, while disturbingly relevant, feel somewhat analog compared to our modern landscape of sophisticated digital surveillance and data harvesting. There are no smartphones in 1990, no internet, no social media; it’s a state-controlled world dominated by broadcast television, physical documentation and face-to-face encounters. It’s these technological differences that mark the show as a product of it’s time and highlight that while some things have remained disturbingly consistent, many aspects have moved in other directions. The show also underestimated the role of multinational corporations and global capitalism as forces in the suppression of liberty, preferring to focus on a more direct state apparatus.
In 2025, we find ourselves in a world where the battle for civil liberties is being fought on digital platforms, not through physical newspapers and broadcast television. While the show’s vision of overt government overreach is less common in the West, the encroachment of personal data by both governments and corporations does echo the concerns of the series. 1990 serves as a reminder of the constant vigilance required to safeguard our freedoms, a reminder that is equally valid now as it was when the show first appeared on television screens almost 50 years ago. It serves a a cautionary tale about the importance of a free press and the dangers of allowing unchecked power to fester.
1990 aired on the BBC.
Years ran: 1977-1978
Number of Episodes: 16
Creators: Wilfred Greatorex
Cast: Edward Woodward, Barbara Kellerman, Robert Lang, Lisa Harrow, Paul Rogers
