It's a Sin

Russell T Davies's It's a Sin aired on Channel 4 in January 2021 and became, immediately, the most-discussed British drama of that year. The five-part series won the BAFTA for Best Limited Series and the Royal Television Society Award for Best Drama Series, with Callum Scott Howells winning the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his debut performance. Davies had been working on the project for over a decade (initially as The Boys, then under various titles) before Channel 4 commissioned it.

The series follows a group of young gay men (Ritchie (Olly Alexander, in a stunning lead performance), Roscoe (Omari Douglas), Colin (Howells)) who move to London in 1981 and build a found family at the Pink Palace flat-share, just as the AIDS crisis begins to devastate the community. Lydia West plays their friend Jill, modelled on the Davies friend Jill Nalder who plays Jill's mother in the series. Neil Patrick Harris's late-cameo as the older lover Henry is one of the most quietly heartbreaking moments in television of recent years.

The series had immediate public-health impact: the Terrence Higgins Trust reported the largest single increase in HIV testing in UK history during its broadcast week, attributed directly to the show. It also reignited a generational conversation about Section 28, parental rejection, and the Church of England's role. It's a Sin is angry, intimate, and built with the certainty of a writer who lived through what he is depicting.

Why it's an Editor's Pick: The defining British drama about the AIDS years, made with the specificity that only a survivor could bring. Davies at the height of his powers, and a five-hour case for what television can still do when a master is given the time.