![]() With any luck it will renew interest in the original, because it’s just as enthralling now as it when it first aired. We’ll probably find out soon enough, as Amazon Prime’s US remake, penned by Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn, has just hit the platform. Perhaps what Utopia really needed was today’s deranged political climate and a terrifying real-life virus in order to thrive because themes of global extinction, shadowy corporate overlords and conspiracy theories feel perfectly suited to 2020. Darkness aside, perhaps it was ahead of its time. Quite why Utopia was so overlooked is a bit of mystery. Combined with Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s strange, discombobulating soundtrack, and a colour palette taking in blue skies and golden fields and weird green interrogation rooms, the whole series presents itself as slightly off-kilter, and this unique aesthetic buffs away some of the show’s sharper edges. This ever-present gallows humour lightens Utopia’s emotional load. Their methods are abhorrent but perhaps some of their thinking is sound? Our protagonists must decide on which side of the fence they stand, and we find ourselves in their shoes, asking the same questions. As details of the conspiracy unfold, we start to wonder if the bad guys actually have a point. A global conspiracy, with reality-fracturing consequences, playing out against mundane British suburbia – it’s a striking juxtaposition, making Utopia both outlandish and believable at the same time.Īnother intriguing facet to Utopia is the ethical dilemma it presents to its characters – and to the viewer. ![]() It’s like a paranoid conspiracy thriller from the 1970s transported to middle England. Their only hope of survival is to go on the run with an infamous terrorist named Jessica Hyde (Fiona O’Shaughnessy).įrom top to bottom, Utopia challenges you. Loyalties are divided, morals compromised and there’s a good old fashioned double cross or two. ![]() They become embroiled in a global conspiracy centred around a vaccine in a pandemic they are framed for crimes they did not commit they are hunted by everyone. ![]() The closer the group gets to the truth, the more their lives begin to unravel. Told that Jessica will be tortured if he fails to cooperate Philip hides the virus inside her and sends her to safety whilst retreating to a psychiatric hospital.Utopia’s motley crew of graphic novel enthusiasts. Five years later Milner and the assistant are desperate for Philip to give them the formula, in the process killing politicians to whom he has turned for help and influencing the general election. At the same time his wife dies giving birth to Jessica. He begins manufacture but is appalled when Milner and her assistant kill the co-workers to ensure their silence, along with Milner’s mentally dependant husband Tom. At a thinkers’ convention Philip meets a young woman called Milner, who is impressed by his view that the world is over-populated and who introduces him to an influential group who encourage him to create Janus, a virus which will suppress procreation. 1974: In an England beset by strikes and shortages young scientist Philip Carvel is father to the seriously reticent toddler Pietre – who will one day become Arby – and conducts a macabre experiment with a pet rabbit in an unsuccessful attempt to get a response from the child.
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