UTOPIA: C4's dark drama featuring torture, conspiracies and a comic book

That was a bit of a ride, wasn't it?

Spent most of the first hour waiting for the plot to begin to come together, but when it did it was at such a pace that it's hard to see how they're going to spin it out for six episodes so there must be much more they're not telling us at this point. Torture scenes were a bit nasty really.

A lot of the show was saying "that's thingy out of what's it called!" Spotted Curtis off Misfits, Faisal (? the one that gets blown up with the sheep) off Four Lions, Jamie off The Thick Of It and Wheels off Spaced.

Liked this, very much so at times. Terrific cast and interesting characters (esp. Wilson Wilson, hoping he makes some kind of recovery). Good to see the guy from Kill List getting to nasty things up again. He was only in it briefly last night, but I'll watch anything with Stephen Rea too.

I'd read a bit about the torture scene in previews, wld agree it was nasty but I guess I've become jaded thanks to films like I Saw the Devil, Haute Tension, Martyrs etc as it hardly compared to those. Novel though, and nicely played for pitch-black lols by the torturer.

On board for next episode, although I can see it going into a rabbit warren of ever more complex conspiracy tat which wld be disappointing. That said, Dennis Kelly surprised me plenty of times with Pulling so perhaps I'm giving him too little credit.

Yeah, I'm coming to the conclusion it's going to be the best thing on C4 in some time. Wilson Wilson is the bloke for 4 Lions, and yes, was aces. Good spot on the Kill List guy though, I knew I knew him from somewhere.

Oh absolutely the torture was really reined in, but not for mainstream(ish) television. Bleach was maybe a step too far?

I think that's the big danger, that the plot will get convoluted to the point where I (and you) don't care about it any more.

I enjoyed this, some of the writing was a bit clunky, particularly when minor characters got involved, but the mystery at the centre of it is compelling enough to keep watching.

Jesus Christ that torture scene. I'll never look at my spice rack in the same way again.

Sand. The secret of Mum DC's cooking.

Sand and bleach. The torturer needed some wood chippings in there for true authenticity.

I will watch anything with Stephen Rea in it. His turn as Gatehouse in Shadow Line is one of the best things I have seen on British tv.

Oh, I thought I spotted Stephen Rea in the trailer, good stuff. Have this recorded, glad people are liking it. I shall keep a cushion handy to hide behind during the torture bit.

>His turn as Gatehouse in Shadow Line

OTM. Was talking about Utopia with colleague yesterday and we both went "but what about Stephen Rea in The Shadow Line!". That series was superb, and he was like a black hole in the centre of it; just wonderful.

He's a bit of a black hole in the centre of this as well, we don't know much about him at all but he's clearly this behind-the-scenes puppet master type.

Yeah, loved how the new Minister revealed he's part of the mission too.

I missed that, I'd assumed the Russian flu thing was forcing the country to stockpile for Something Really Bad, but it could also have been a conspiracy to get rid of the minister and put their own man in place.

I was pleased with myself cos half an hour into this I said to my gf "If I know my comics a new person will show up at the end of this and the episode's last words will be 'I'm Jessica Hyde'," which was kinda obvious but cool to be spot on.

When the new minister introduces himself to Not Jamie he signs off saying something like "good to know I have a man I can trust, one who does the right thing and carries out the mission." Steven Rea talked about the mission as well, which was why I made the connection - could be a fake-out though.

I assumed Jessica Hyde would turn up like that too, but then Heroes pulled the same trick twice in the first season so I half-thought they would think it was too obvious.

Yeah it occurred to me the Jamie guy is so freaked out and paranoid that he'll do anything if anyone mentions the word "mission" and the Russian flu thing had absolutely nothing to do with the threats made to him.

Wow, just watched the first episode. I thought it was incredible! I sure hope they can take the premise all the way and it doesn't fizzle out, but the acting and everything was really good.

Big question for me is how does a mentally-ill geneticist get so good at illustration? The pages shown of Utopia look awfully well done for an amateur trying release his demons or whatever.

Also, I laughed pretty hard when Ian's supervisor or whatever chided him for being on forums instead of filling out some spreadsheet... I'm sure no one here is ever guilty of that...

Big question for me is how does a mentally-ill geneticist get so good at illustration

Amateur doesn't necessarily mean bad. I know some pretty good non-professional artists.

Expect you were all expecting that post to be about ep 2 but I just watched the first one, hopefully will catch up tomorrow.

This is very good fun, but I don't follow the main Russian/bird flu plot at all.

^^glad i'm not the only one. at the moment i'm only really into it when neil maskell shows up.

The music in this is nutso

strong month for debut UK TV w/this & my mad fat diary

Really liking this. I'm in a similar boat re: the government scenes, but I'm kind of okay with floating along with 'it's some big conspiracy thing about the creation of a disease' for the moment.

I can't bring myself to watch My Mad Fat Diary because the name is just TOO horrible and offensive.

Everything about this is cool apart from the yawnsome plot. Secret uberpowerful shadow organisation, bioweapons being tested on civilians, "come with me if you want to live"; not sure there's a single novel idea there. Will watch the whole thing though.

I was struggling to keep up after ep 2.

Jessica is a double (at least) agent, Becky is a double agent, the guy with the gas and the sweets is a triple agent gone rogue. The Tramp was just weird. That said, Not Jamie's prostitute gf being framed for the death of the newsman was great and I'm loving the James Fox/Steven Rea/Not Jamie stuff.

Oh, wait, I was believing Jessica's story about herself, so was thinking she wasn't any x-number agent but rather a lone wolf. Was it flagged up that she was lying? (Though of course it would make sense - why would she tell these particular people the truth anyway?)

I totally get what seandalai's saying but I still think it's fun.

watched both eps last night.
some genuinely laugh out loud moments ("i'm totally net invisible", "yeah, but you use your real name on a forum", "ahh but no-ones going to believe that" )
.. and some pretty nasty (for tv) moments of excess.
loved it.
not bothered about trying to figure out who is double crossing who, just enjoying the ride ..

The way Jessica took care of The Tramp was (imo) supposed to flag that she wasn't who she said she was - the "he gave up the name too easily" story to Ian just seemed like an easy lie to cover up for the fact she was supposed to do it. To look at it a different way, if anybody who could turn her in/lead the bad guys to her should be removed from the plot then how come the family were left tied up in the garage for the guy with the gas and sweets to kill?

I think I need to watch it all again but my suspicion is that him and the guy Wilson killed after the torture are the clean-up squad for loose ends that Jessica leaves behind, as he just seems to get rid of people without necessarily letting them tell him where she is. "Where is Jessica Hyde" is just because he knows she'll have left a loose end (like not killing the agent who was posing as the widow) so he's running in her wake.

if anybody who could turn her in/lead the bad guys to her should be removed from the plot then how come the family were left tied up in the garage for the guy with the gas and sweets to kill?

Because the Tramp knew exactly who she was and what she was doing, and the family were just people who happened to come home from holiday and had no idea what was going on, and the idea to leave it looking like a burglary was better than murdering them all, which would be a massive flag to the authorities?

Don't see how murdering the family would be a flag to the authorities - it could still just look like a burglary gone wrong. The point is she doesn't kill people in front of Ian/Becky (although the Tramp shows she's beginning to do things in front of Ian) to give the impression she is who she says she is.

The authorities don't seem to be interested in, or catching up with gas/sweets bloke and he's murdering them. According to Jessica he (and his dead mate, although what if Wilson's actually playing the other side too and he didn't kill him...) is a rogue/lone agent too who left the conspiracy and is working alone so the same rules about revealing yourself apply to him.

I think there are three bits I need to watch again:

Jessica's 'confession' to Ian
Jessica's torture of the 'widow'
Jessica and The Tramp in the toilet. Did she call him 'Dad' at one point?

The point is she doesn't kill people in front of Ian/Becky... to give the impression she is who she says she is.

Or it could be the explicitly stated reason (to Becky - "you're not strong enough yet").

(although the Tramp shows she's beginning to do things in front of Ian)

So why would she be dropping the pretence so easily in front of him? This arc is much more easily explained by her testing his mettle and feeling that he can deal with adapting to the brutality of his new reality.

I dunno, I just don't think it's anywhere near as complicated as you think it is/want it to be. To be honest, I'm not even sure that Becky's a double agent - she was pitching a doctoral thesis on Utopia at the beginning, right? It's theoretically possible that that phone call was some sort of benign check-in with her supervisor or some such. (Not committing to that theory, either, just saying that it's possible.)

I know what you mean, but I'm sure there's something in the dialogue which means it is that complicated (hence why I want to watch it again).

I take your point on Becky. But...

what if they're all double agents? Wilson can make a random laptop 'invisible' in a new house with no hardware, yet in his own house he needed a whole room of electronics? It could all be a satire on undercover people reporting on each other - wasn't there something similar happened with Special Branch around the time of MacLibel?

I don't think we've been shown any clear clues that JH is *bad*, just that she's pretty fucked up (not surprising if you believe she's been on the run since age 4). But I fully expect each episode to dump new and unforeseeable twists on us.

OK:

The Tramp is at the house of the guy in the beginning who posts issue 2 then kills himself (which the CIA confirm they know). The hitman turns up at the bit of road where the guy killed himself then speaks into his phone and appears to get another location. Although if he's just following blindly (as Jessica tells Ian) is there even anyone at the other end of the phone?

Jessica promises Wilson "they" are picking up his dad when she first turns up at the house. We're supposed to think that means taking him to safety (as does Becky, possibly, when she looks him up on the internet), but what if she actually does keep her promise and "they" are taking him back home to kill him in a faked botched burglary (which is what Becky later does to the family)?

When Jessica tells them about the Soviets and the Network, Ian asks why that's important and Jessica says that's who's after them. She never specifies which side.

Jessica asks Ian if he has the manuscript (NB we have not been shown her telling him of the link between the Soviets/The Network and Utopia although obviously she could have done without us seeing) as if she has no idea where it is, but thinks it's possible he has it. So she's connected enough to know personal things about Wilson (the invisible man) and where Becky lives but not that the guy was thrown off the roof before they were all supposed to meet? It seems weird she isn't able to make that connection, or maybe she's several steps ahead and is being deliberately disingenuous?

"I hack airline companies looking for people on holiday". When does she find time to do this if she thinks the first safe house can be compromised at any point? Not saying it's a thing, but we never see her with a computer at any point especially not 'invisibly' so if someone was looking for her she'd be really easy to find if you knew that was her MO.

When Jessica tells the story of Karvell she said he went mad and was going to be killed but was smuggled out. She then says she was smuggled out with him having previously been held hostage to keep him working. Part of this smacks of a daughter not wanting to think of her dad doing wrong (and having to be forced to keep on doing bad things) being a background note in a cover story to me. Also she was smuggled out with him "when I was 4. I've been on the run ever since." Firstly, having gone to the effort of smuggling the pair of them out, you'd think whoever did it would do the same sort of thing for her (new identity, false family etc) rather than dump her. I appreciate her 'on the run' is not supposed to be literally since she was 4, but from what age then? When she found out who her real father was? If so, all her knowledge about Karvell and hospital/writing Utopia is received wisdom and not her own memories so could either be planted false memories or just a cover story. Also note the concept of being smuggled out from the inside and good bad guys introduces the idea of double agents into the overall plot.

There's something about the way Jessica looks at Becky as she takes Ian out to trace the comic which makes me think she knows the family are coming back or she sends a fake family back to see how Becky reacts and to see if she's (or make her) ready. This would tie in with the Hitman being her cleanup crew. On top of this, Jessica and Ian go somewhere after the torture and stay out overnight. Why? If you've got a blind man and someone you think isn't ready in your safe house surely you'd try and get back as soon as you can? We know the publisher's house isn't far because they get there in clear daylight. What's the smash of glass when Becky is in the bath that alerts her to the fact the family are letting themselves in with their own keys? Jessica has set up the booby trap but to the door - and the door isn't open by the time Becky is downstairs with a towel on pointing a gun at them. After Jessica and Ian get back, Jessica isn't surprised at all by the family in the garage and has already set up a new safe house. She has written down the address and gives it to Becky - when did she have time to do this if she was with Ian?

Why does Jessica take Ian to the publisher's house with the fake widow when she must know he's dead? If he posted the comic to the dealer in Scotland then killed himself it went to Scotland by mail, then back to London, then changed hands at least once. On that basis he's been dead for at least a week - which, as with the death of the guy thrown off the building, you'd think she'd know. Especially if she's online all the time establishing future safe houses and keeping track of Becky, Ian and Wilson (given Becky is able to find out about Wilson's dad's death in seconds). After all, she always knew his name and address so why go backwards to somewhere you know it isn't when you know as much as he knew about where he sent it? She clubs the fake widow because "police turn up asking to see your dead husband and you don't ask why?" Well, actually, the fake widow answers everything she asks so she has no reason to suspect. My guess is that she knows and this is some kind of test for Ian. "That's how they work. They have people high up who get their drones to do their work for them." This is designed to desensitise Ian to the CIA agent, that she doesn't matter, so he can accept torture and (maybe) murder. After all, the next time we see him he's soaking her with water so she can be threatened with electrocution.

The hitman turns up at the publishers because (he claims) the CIA woman didn't phone in. This is potentially just a cover on his part to get her trust, but there are a couple of problems with this. If he didn't know she was tied up, because someone told him, then it's just a coincidence, which feels wrong. And if someone told him, why kill her? And why didn't Jessica? (fake burglary and all that?)

When Becky looks up Wilson's dad he was shot at 4:30pm and neighbours alerted the police to "a loud bang" (singular) yet his dad was supposedly shot in the face and chest (i.e. multiple shots). So the bang they hear which calls the police is Wilson shooting the hitman/torturer? Yet nobody sees Becky's car pulling away? The news story also says Wilson is missing. At this point Wilson tells Becky that Grant has it.

The Tramp's conversation with Jessica appears to reveal nothing deeper other than at the end when he says "I'm on your side. I'm one of them." One of who? I thought (and even earlier in the same conversation) they were all loners. Now, we know he was a scientist at the Network and so therefore "them" could, and probably does, refer to the people who smuggled out Karvell and Jessica but those same people abandoned her which is why she's been on the run 'since she was 4'. And the Tramp recognises her, so has seen her as an adult. So either their paths have crossed (and you'd wonder why, since it's only the new work on Janus that's made the manuscript important) meaning she isn't much cop at covering her tracks after all (leading to the question of how she's managed to do it for so many years) or she was an adult when she left "them". On another listen he said he found out there was a part two when Karvell told him after he visited him in hospital. Then says he went to the hospital in the first place to get part two. Both can't be true. There's also significance in the name of the project. Janus. Two-faced. Another hint that nobody is what they seem? On a side note, by now Ian is inured enough to go and steal a car while Jessica kills the tramp. Yes, he argues with her about it but when she explains she says "why are you being so odd?" The way she says it makes me think she thinks he's an agent of somebody.

When James Fox asks Not Jamie "what do you want it for?" about the vaccine he uses exactly the same cadence as when Jessica asked the Tramp "what did you want it for" about issue 2.

When Becky uses the phone at the end, she says "It's me. The manuscript exists. The boy knows where it is." Doesn't sound like it's a casual phone call to her supervisor.

So no smoking gun about Jessica, but too much that doesn't add up. I would quite happily think I'm reading too much into this, but it's deliberately designed to be a plot about people sucked into a conspiracy that's too complex for them to grasp, and has a viral site where you try and find out as much as you can about the Utopia experiments before "they" catch you. I think you're supposed to analyse it and find the depth of the conspiracy. And that as an alternate reading, if you just see/hear the dialogue once and are in it (like Ian) you see the face value only.

Or I could just be a mentalist.

Actually, I've spotted a mistake in what I've typed there. I could have sworn Jessica told Ian about the hitman being a rogue agent but she completely fails to. I'm not even sure where I got that idea from.

Jessica has set up the booby trap but to the door - and the door isn't open by the time Becky is downstairs with a towel on pointing a gun at them.

I thought she said it was a tripwire in the garden? Didn't watch as closely as you did though.

I'm a bit sceptical that all these off-notes are truly meaningful and not just lazy writing. I've been burned too many times before by trusting that the writers are in control of every detail.

Yes, I worry that I'm expecting too much of the writer of Matilda The Musical.

I'm a bit sceptical that all these off-notes are truly meaningful and not just lazy writing.

This is totally what the vast majority of them are. And some of them aren't even 'lazy' but 'minorly unlikely', when as everyone knows, reality is more unlikely than most fiction. The rest are psychological motivations which seem 'wrong' to aldo, which is a completely subjective thing. I'm fairly sure if he scrutinised my actions versus my words he'd find my backstory incredibly sketchy.

defo

If the Jamie guy weren't so dumb he might at some point have asked himself how the hell anyone knows for sure it was him who got the Russian prostitute pregnant.

So the big mystery then is where Jessica and Ian go to after the interrogation of the CIA agent, and why. They leave the house in the afternoon and aren't seen again until the following afternoon when they meet The Tramp. Since he's only on foot, and we know he was at the publisher's house, he can't be sufficiently far to justify an overnight journey (especially since they get back to the house quickly after killing him) and there's a scene between Becky & Wilson that directly draws the viewers' attention to them not coming back at night and how odd it is, so it's not just a writing omission.

That scene is there to amp up the tension, emphasise Becky's sexual jealousy, contrast the emotional states of the pairs of characters and give B&W a plausible amount of time to start breaking Jessica's rules, though? It's not a writing omission, it's a narrative ploy.

Do we have any proof that Anya (sp?) is actually pregnant? Though I guess if she was framed for the murder (but was that TV footage real?), then she's hardly in on the plot.

odd that the pharma goons knew exactly when to turn on the TV.

just watched e2. some of the analysis upthread is wild. this tv show is not going to be complex. the whole "where is jessica hyde" thing is enough for me to be 100 per cent positive she will be a "good" character throughout.

So why would she be dropping the pretence so easily in front of him? This arc is much more easily explained by her testing his mettle and feeling that he can deal with adapting to the brutality of his new reality.

exactly right. the next scene was becky being told she did the right thing by tying up the family, completely hammered home as a way of showing she's adapting where her pal isn't.

this show is really silly and just weighed down with cliché after cliché, it reminds me of Killer Net, but has the same pulpy appeal. anyone recall that show?

YOU FLAMED ME!

the whole "where is jessica hyde" thing is enough for me to be 100 per cent positive she will be a "good" character throughout

Think it's more likely that both sides will turn out to be the bad guys with the comic book nerds in the middle of it. But yeah it's not exactly complex, enjoyable enough though although I thought the second episode really suffered from jettisoning a lot of the humour in the first ep.

btw jessica hyde is hot

would go on crime spree with

"She can throttle my hobo any day" etc etc.

Am I missing something about vaccines? This whole "I-I-I-I, uh, ne-need a sample of the vaccine" stuff -- you've just bought a shitton of it, pop to Boots.

all a bit one note this week.

Select cuts from the soundtrack: http://cristobaltapiadeveer.bandcamp.com/album/utopia-coming-soon

I might buy that. Best soundtrack on TV

Not that there's a lot of competition

Enjoying the Not Jamie stuff the most, although "such a shame to see her raped... brutally... later this week..." was pretty grim.

As good as outright confirmation Becky is an agent - her scene with Grant where she tends to his ankle is pretty much exactly the same as when Jessica gets him drunk then plays mother to him, plus she stumble "I need the manuscript/we need the manuscript".

So, Steven Rea and the Hitman are on the same side, but are Jessica and the Hitman? After the Karvell was a Nazi revelation, there's something odd about the says "how close are we to Utopia?" to Grant that makes me think she WANTS the eugenics experiment brought forward.

Weirdest though is when the Hitman doesn't shoot Jessica because he appears to think she's not her. That would tie into the triple agent theory?

Who's the guy with the gun they meet in the church that the MI5 woman shoots? He's at the house before they have a chance for the phone call to alert where they are, so has Jessica sent him there (since she's the only{?} other person who knows where they are)?

enjoyable crap is the kindest way to describe this show.

Guy in the church who Geraldine James shoots is another MI5 agent. As soon as the call was intercepted they sent their man in, hence the lone wolf MI5 agent Geraldine James telling them to get out.

They don't have time to send a man in, surely? Jessica (and the incident with the family) teaches them they have to be ready to move in a minute or so, and Geraldine James tells them to leave straight away. Let's be generous and say they leave within 10 minutes - MI5 have someone close enough that can get to a remote house and hide in that time? Not very likely.

(Although I concede it could just be an overused tv trope written badly)

Weirdest though is when the Hitman doesn't shoot Jessica because he appears to think she's not her

I've been assuming that Becky is actually Jessica Hyde and the other woman we've been seeing is some kind of creepy farmed impostor.

I agree that this is mostly enjoyable crap although the piling on of sociopathic bleakness on top of sociopathic bleakness and shadowy conspiracy on top of shadowy conspiracy means that when the stakes are raised you don't really feel it. Even when Kill List Guy went into the school there was a feeling of "oh he's just killed more people, onto the next scene" and that was a fucking school massacre.

The leads don't help. Only the Jamie guy really gives a sense of being way over his head. Becky and Wilson and Not Curtis mostly come across as mildly inconvenienced by the fact that their lives are potentially in ruins and they're on the run from a shadowy organisation that wants to kill them.

That's what makes me think they're all possibly double agents. I kind of don't want to think that it's all just bad writing and acting just yet.

Watched eps 2 and 3 earlier in the afternoon on the sofa hungover. Best way to watch; good, foolish fun. I really like this type of conspiracy mystery nonsense. Reminds me of House Of Leaves somehow. And feels very much like Chris Morris's Jam on occasion. I guess that's the soundtrack someone pointed to above. I like the direction, the bright vivid colours. I bet it trails of and annoys me in the end when all the loose ends are tied up though.

I think he didn't shoot her because he's suddenly cold-hitman-starts-to-question and also looking for answers about his past. Jessica is a link to the past (and quasi-sister if he feels himself "created" by her father) and so even though she says she doesn't remember him, he decides not to kill her.

Asking where she is as he leaves I read as him saying "I'm just going to say you weren't here and I'm still looking for you" xp

May not happen but there are certainly signals that Jessica and Arby might both be products of the same program.

genuinely think Alice is one of their creepy little brainwashed kids.

I think we're supposed to doubt every character. It seemed to start to unravel a little tonight - I didn't get where the race thing came into their conclusions about the vaccine. Massive leap there that I missed.

How many episodes of this are there btw?

There was a bit in the previous episode where it was revealed that the Prof who wrote the comic was a massive Nazi and was interested in eugenics, hence the race thing this week.

I feel like they're yanking my chain by making the show so pretty but full of torture and murder

six episodes is it?

apparently i am totally desensitized to (fictional) murder, torture can fuck off but fortunately they haven't returned to the giddy heights of the first episode.

the lethal vaccine + food chain reveal was implausibly speedy but i'm sure there's a switcheroo or two coming. yeah this isn't the most tightly plotted or original story but it looks and sounds amazing.

I searched the hashtag on Twitter last night and it was great to see so many people, mostly young, getting their minds blown by this. I've seen enough paranoid thrillers not to be startled when someone says "You have no idea what these people are capable of" but it seems to be striking a huge chord with teenagers. The conspiracy's outlandishly huge and too many scenes rely on guns pointed at heads but, like ledge says, it looks and sounds brilliant and I like the dearth of big names in the cast. The woman who plays Jessica Hyde is apparently big in Irish theatre but hasn't done much TV so I see her as her character rather than thinking, oh, her again. And the character of Arby is fascinating - a ruthless killer slowly regressing to a damaged child. I miss the humour of the first episode though.

i missed the first episode (and the 4seven repeat) and home network isn't up to 4od. guess i have to wait for them to repeat the entire thing.

Particularly liked the "RB...'Raisin Boy'" exchange last night, produced a very hollow chuckle from this viewer.

best chuckle last night was the scientist complaining that the press ruined his life by telling the world that he like prostitutes and cocaine : 'i mean it was true, i do like prostitutes and cocaine, but they didn't have to tell everyone'

About to watch ep 4 but as a side note to gyac's observation about Alice:

I just assumed Alice was the kid at school who might talk to random people that turn up, but the way her mum behaved in the first two eps was just weird. In ep 2, when Danny breaks in and spends the night in Alice's room he gets disturbed and in the morning because Alice's mum shouts that it's time to get ready and leave. Danny then just leaves through the door and up the corridor that she's apparently in with no alarm, no shouts and no checking he's not being seen. Then in ep 3, when Alice is being told by the police they know about Danny and Arby turns up etc, her mum is calm as you like throughout. She's just found out a kid that cold-bloodedly murdered a school of other children was skulking about in her house the other night. Her reaction is just "Pff. No biggie. Where's the manuscript?"

Is it just me that thinks that's a bit odd? (Rhetorical, I know, as the answer is obviously yes)

I still think there's a reveal to come where Jessica/Not Jessica is shown to share the Nazi opinions of Karvell (whether he's her father or not). The scene where she gets Danny drunk has her (imo) wanting the Utopia to come after the virus is released.

The series is definitely at its worst when moving chunks of plot around. Otherwise, still fun.

Biggest plot hole this week (besides the food chain revelation): Why didn't the Network tail civil servant guy to make sure he didn't go near the medical lab?

Speculation: Did Jessica pass something on to Ian when she kissed him?

Why does a sterilisation contagion need to be hereditary? Other than that, great episode.

This is still holding together imo (to my surprise). Arby/RB/Piotr's character was so good this week. Brother-sister revelation not really a surprise, nor that Janus is a Watchmen-like plot to save humanity by hurting it (or maybe Letts was lying/doesn't know the truth?).

Revelations to come: If Janus affects 95% of people, which 5% are not affected? We still don't know what Jessica's motivation is. Also unclear what Dugdale will do - did he call the police because he thinks he has negotiated peace with the Network and his wife, or because he knew he was being watched and needed to allay suspicions? As for Mr. Rabbit's identity, I'd guess he's either Carville (and still alive?) or he doesn't exist.

Plot-holes or not-holes: Did Letts say that Deal's was a test to see whether they could introduce hereditary changes, and the change they want to introduce now is sterility? [xp - started writing this an hour ago] How did the gang get Milner's address?

why would the doctor guy be all "oh i need to be rich, being old in the future will be hell" when he is like easily 50, at least, and so there'd be plenty of young people around. does it even make sense that with no babies nobody would bother to care for the old? surely the reverse is true?

Like initially at least it's hard to see how he'd be affected.

Heh, good catch. The way around it might have been to have him say "The world is going to go through a massive upheaval and I need to stockpile cash to make sure I'm buffered from the chaos".

I just think he's too old to have those concerns. What would practically be different that would mean the elderly would be left to die while there were still as many adults as always (giving him a 25 year life expectancy and that's generous)

Surely efforts to prolong lifespan would be concentrated more in that world, while viable.

Can't believe I'm wasting mindspace on this.

No, I agree with you completely. I was just thinking that in the immediate term, people are going to notice that everyone's become sterile and that will have unpredictable effects on society. Could drive everyone a bit mad for a while.

Children of Men iirc

That was my reaction to the plan too. Janus dude, haven't you seen Children of Men? It doesn't work out well.

lesser of two evils though. arguably.

re: sterility and heritability, maybe in the 5% who can conceive the condition is present but dormant, so the following generations are also 95% sterile.

although really there would be little point in trying to engineer that, the problem is overpopulation right now. once you've reduced the population by 95% in one generation that's the problem solved, whether or not it grows to dangerous levels in another 2000 years is not a major concern.

do you all think that rea's character was actually honest about what was going on?

they could pull another twist i suppose, but rea's idea is more interesting than the standard eugenics stuff they thought was going on before. also rea thought, correctly, he'd been given up so he had no reason to bluff.

I didn't get the bit abt the stones. Did JH dream/flashback to getting one out of the guy's stomach too?

I don't know, it's beginning to collapse under the weight of Wouldn't It Be Cool If-isms. Yes, we're back at the TRUST NO-ONE shitstorm I predicted in the beginning but for me it went over the top when it turned out that the doctor that Dugdale went to is also the one who is selling the Deal's vaccine to Becky - so if he was already on the other side of the conspiracy, or at least knows what is going on, why did he even bother to test the sample that Dugdale brings him if his intention was always to run like fuck as soon as Dugdale's back was turned?

Although that scene with him does exactly explain his motivation that Ronan ponders above. He says there that he wants to be rich, really rich because it'll be his way of seeing out the rest of his life in whatever the world looks like if 'they' succeed. (In other words, pretty much exactly the line that seandalai was looking for.)

I think Dugdale thinks turning them and the vaccine will give him the ability to keep the promise he and his wife made to Anya, that new evidence will set her free. I'm guessing they were bluffing when they went to see her, just in order to see whether she would agree with the adoption/surrogate plan. My favourite bit of the episode was how quickly he put back the vaccine when he heard it sterilised people.

fwiw I think James Fox will be revealed as Mr Rabbit in the last episode. And possibly Carville.

fwiw I think James Fox will be revealed as Mr Rabbit in the last episode. And possibly Carville.

Feels a bit too obvious, but yeah it could happen. Not sure if Mr. Rabbit == Carville works then - why would they need to find the manuscript?

do you all think that rea's character was actually honest about what was going on?

Had the same thought - he (and other downstream characters like Donaldson) might not even know the extent of the plan.

I'm not sold on the idea of Mr Rabbit == Carville myself, but it feels like something the writer might throw in as a DYS. Also the idea of Mr Rabbit as a dissociative personality which allows him to carry out experiments on his son (and maybe daughter) may well be too tempting to him. As to why he would then want the manuscript, I'm guessing potentially his time in the asylum showed him the error of his ways and he wants to destroy it - but he needs to be on the inside to get it and the trial is already too far underway for him to stop it. I would call that complete bullshit but I can see it on screen for sure.

James Fox has only ever been credited as The Assistant btw, which is surely the biggest clue that he's definitely supposed to be Mr Rabbit.

Yes, we're back at the TRUST NO-ONE shitstorm I predicted in the beginning

hang on, we still trust wilson, ian, grant, there's no evidence that jessica is actually a double agent...

dugdale just turned them in to protect his own skin.

becky isn't an actual double agent, she's effectively being bribed by the doctor.

There has to be a reveal about Ian, doesn't there? Every other "hero" is interesting in some way.

Also The Assistant said Letts had provided a good cover, ie for The Assistant aka Mr Rabbit to run things. The soul patch always struck me as rather odd, particularly for an establishment figure. Another hint that The Assistant is not all he seems.

I'm with Ledge on the trust issue. I don't think the plot is anywhere as complicated as some are trying to make it and the characters motivations are fairly clear. I think one of the strengths of Ian is his ordinariness. He's the likeable everyman figure who has managed to keep the gang together mainly through his lack of agenda. While he's made a few mistakes, he's been proven his mettle.

I don't think the plot is anywhere as complicated as some are trying to make it and the characters motivations are fairly clear

yep

The reveal re: Becky's motivations was well-handled. I'd have been disappointed if she'd been just a traitor working for Mr Rabbit. The characterisation is pretty strong - stronger than most paranoid thrillers - which means you can't fuck around with the characters' allegiances too much without destroying a lot of good work and the audience's faith. I don't want Becky or Jessica or whoever to be cold-hearted liars. Arby continues to rule - his scenes with Jessica were the best bits of the episode. I like the way she thinks he's arranging a rendezvous when really he just wants a fry-up. "Talk to the man." "Which man?" "The one behind the counter."

He sort of is arranging something, doesn't he say later he gets a gun from there? The actor is doing sterling work though, agreed.

Yeah that's true about the gun but she doesn't know that at the time. She's expecting an introduction and comes away thinking it was a waste of time. I loved it when he said it was his local and she said, "It's a motorway cafe! It's nobody's local!"

Anyone?

meh

It was entertaining enough but all the big reveals were pretty predictable in the end.

I'd like to watch it again because I got confused. I also want to know what happened to Arby

well, i would suggest that the Arby story will be picked up in Series 2.

(note the presence of 'Series 1' declaration on the cover of the DVD)

Only just started watching this and OMG 'hidden in my greatest creation' is such an over-worked and lazy trope I can't believe it's actually going to be that.

There's no Arby story to pick up - he was in the old hospital building where Jessica took the manuscript from him. Either he was killed by the agents that were following (and he had started to torch the hospital to delay) or he was in on the plot to bring Jessica to Milner and this was just another strand to it.

The end was really predictable, but the Becky reveal proves (I think) that Becky was working for Milner the whole time and was the double agent I thought she was. Think about it - the only people we ever hear of that have Deal's Syndrome are Becky, her Dad and Milner's son (who is only used as a fake-out device by Milner). It's a rare disease which only has experimental medication to cure, and Becky happens across the one guy (who also is the bent scientist in the Department of Health labs) who can get his hands on the cure? What was it she said about James Fox? "He even had words carved into his stomach to maintain his cover. You wouldn't believe the lengths people will go to." The cover of 'Becky' has served its usefulness so she can just leave Ian and Grant to it.

I'd give Becky the benefit of the doubt. She wanted to spare Ian the horror of seeing her succumb to Deal's. If she was part of the plot, why would she need to go through the palaver of bargaining with the scientist?

Because he's needed to keep Dugdale?

The whole thing's overly complicated tbh. If Milner's plan has always been to get hold of Jessica then she's always known that the manuscript said Jessica was the key. She's also always known Jessica was chasing the manuscript. She could have caught her in episode 1 in that case.

I think it's less complicated than you suggest. Making the manuscript the MacGuffin was a fine twist. It provided great cover and allowed Milner to gradually pull in her real quarry.

No, you only need the manuscript as a MacGuffin if you're going to make it complicated.

If you are head of a super-secret agency (which may be within a different agency) that is as powerful as has been demonstrated in the plot you don't gradually pull someone in, you just take them. And Milner has always knows where Jessica was - Jessica gave Milner's number to Ian and Becky in the first place as someone she trusted, remember.

The only justification for gradually reeling her in is that she wants The Network destroyed before she takes Jessica - but given she would be using and risking Jessica in order to do that, it would be an amazingly stupid plan. What if Jessica died in a park toilets in the middle of nowhere? How would that help you get Jessica?

Ok, but if she took her at the start you wouldn't have had much of a series...

Yes, but that's where the simple plot ends up.

The conspiracy and how complex and interlinked it is is the story. Milner has a ludicrously complicated and risky plan for something very simple. She never needs Jessica to know Arby is her brother. She never needs the manuscript and even says "I only pretended because you would bring it". She has risked the only thing she wanted, utterly pointlessly, for no reason. That just makes no sense as a plot.

Milner can control Jessica more now that she knows about her past. The line about Daddy's love and all that.

Endlessly debating Milner's best course of action is missing the point. Was this a compelling story with clever twists and a sly MacGuffin? Yes. Job done.

She doesn't need to control Jessica, she just needs her blood. She even says that.

It's not missing the point. Is Westlife's Greatest Hits a nice album with smiley young men and hummable tunes? Yes. Job done. If we're not supposed to discuss the content of media then we can delete a good 70% of ILX, certainly all of ILM.

I do owe you a debt of thanks though - since you made me concentrate on it I've realised there's no way the Milner plot can work. Neither she nor The Network (hence RB's mantra of "where is Jessica Hyde") need the manuscript as they know the content. If she needs the vaccine destroyed, well she's got an agent in charge of The Network. But instead she sends another agent undercover as a prostitute to honeytrap a civil servant in the hope that he acts totally out of character and tries to blackmail The Network?

Let's use Raiders of the Lost Ark as an analogy. In the big final scene, the Ark is opened on an island in the Agean and everyone dies. In the Milner Utopia version of this, all Hitler needs to do is to get Indy to that island to win. The Nazis don't need the Ark and know what's in it. The bad archeologist knows what's in the Ark and doesn't care about it. And it turns out that Indy knew where the island was and was planning a holiday there with a nice German man called Adolf who he trusted completely. All of the stuff in Nepal, in Egypt, all the fights and poisonings and fires and threat is all there just because if it wasn't then you wouldn't have had much of a film; and because Hitler planned it that way as there was no risk Indy wouldn't get to the island under his own steam in the end and of course he would survive.

Now do you see how barking an idea the plot is?

Yeah, the only way it makes sense is if they didn't know it was in her blood until they read the manuscript (as it was not in the section Jessica gave to Grant). Then when Milner says at the end she didn't care about the manuscript she means she doesn't care about it anymore. If she knew along it was Jessica the whole thing does fall to bits.

Nothing wrong with discussing the content of media at all, but in this case I can't help but feel that picking apart every aspect of the plot detracts from the fun of the series. Sure it's ridiculous, but then it is a conspiracy thriller...

I don't think Milner would have "turned good" if Jessica had turned up in the warehouse. She says something like "this is all of them?" as soon as she enters the kitchen they're tied up in.

And Milner has always knows where Jessica was - Jessica gave Milner's number to Ian and Becky in the first place as someone she trusted, remember.

As far as we know, Jessica learns about Milner from the Tramp at the same time we do.

Anyway, I came into the last episode expecting everything to fall apart and it overperformed my expectations, so I'm happy. I've been mostly watching for the visuals and the characters, with a side order of enjoyable but nonsensical plotting. Are there any recent conspiracy TV shows that do manage to hold it all together at the end? (I don't watch that much TV, genuinely curious to know). None of the reveals were surprising but I was glad The Assistant wasn't the big boss. I agree the big picture is incoherent, maybe if they'd had Milner using the situation to *acquire* power over the Network it would have made more sense.

I also think Becky is "good" btw. It makes a lot more sense that way, and they show her crying as she gets on the train.

Is that right, about the Tramp giving Jessica and Ian the number? That changes things to a degree, but Milner at the end still says she doesn't need the manuscript, that she was only interested in it because she knew Jessica would deliver it. Given the depth of her conspiracy, that must have always been her plan so she never wanted the manuscript.

The Assistant was the big boss, it was just that Milner had had him replaced with one of her flunkies. He was still behaving, however, as if he was one of the bad bad guys. "What do you call the assassin who kills the assassin?" Or quis custodiet ipsos custodes if you like. And I think you'll find I metioned a British trial upthread when it turned out the bad bad guys were police double agents undercover.

iirc the Tramp gave Milner's name to Jessica. Ian et al. then contacted her by ringing MI5 and asking for her (too easy? red flag?). And The Assistant wasn't the big boss in the sense of being top of the organisation, he was "cover". Milner seems to be the highest-up we've met so far.

I completely agree the Network should just have gone after JH as soon as they had her location - if it's just DNA they need they wouldn't even have to take her alive. A recurrent issue was that the Network was set up to be too powerful. Why bother blackmailing the unpredictable Dugdale - why not just have him fired and replace him with a Network agent?

Yeah, I can agree with all that. istr I drew attention to there being a car already at their location when they first phoned Milner before they were supposedly on the radar, which maybe has a different reading after the event.

Yeah that was the guy Milner shot in the church, right? Presumably a Network agent sacrificed by Milner to gain the gang's trust.

Some sort of defence: We have to assume that at the beginning of the series JH has managed to keep her identity secret since she was a girl, the Network doesn't know what she looks like (though how quickly did the Tramp recognise her? Can't remember). Once the Utopia manuscript appears the Network realise they might be able to catch her so they send Lee and Arby after her (why just them?). Between Ep 1 and Ep 6, how many opportunities do the Network have to catch her? She tends to appear and disappear, e.g. I think she never meets Milner until the end. Arby does catch up with her but then goes rogue. In the end Milner makes JH come to her willingly. Um. Having the Network focusing on the manuscript - to a degree beyond pretending to focus on the manuscript, e.g. Letts' orders to Arby - still doesn't make sense though.

Apologies if it seemed like I was trying to shut down debate upthread. It's just that I'm willing to hand wave certain plot holes in the name of entertainment. After all, how many movies would be over in minutes if the big bad's plans were ruthlessly efficient? Bond villains and their elaborate schemes which allow Bond to get away - a quick bullet to the head would solve everything, but wouldn't make for a fun movie.
That said, I wonder if we're overlooking human fallibility on the Network's side and the possibility that they are improvising to a certain extent. Best laid plans and all that. Milner clearly kept everyone else in the dark about Jessica's DNA. And it was clearly in her and the Network's interest to explore other options for delivering Janus, hence the elaborate conspiracy with the Russian flu vaccine. Milner probably could have brought Jessica in - but would that have succeeded? She's pretty bad ass. I see Milner as playing a cat and mouse game with Jessica, wanting her to come willingly, which might not be the most efficient way of getting hold of the DNA, but makes Milner seem all the more evil and twisted. She enjoys all this.

I completely agree the Network should just have gone after JH as soon as they had her location

when do they actually know her location? Is Arby the only one who manages to find her, by which point he has his own agenda? (seandalai otm in other words).

Admittedly this is pretty much a comic book style conspiracy theory (no pun intended), I can't help thinking of Edge of Darkness (Bob Peck not Mel Gibson) which towers over it terms of story and moments of pure wide-eyed drama, but I don't think it's as hole-ridden or convoluted as is being made out here. (Although I didn't really get the bit where Dugdale is the one who has to test the vaccine and he says "this is why you wanted me all along".)

The Tramp recognises her straight away, and calls her by her name.

Let's look at it from the other side - the Milner doesn't know all along that Jessica is all that's important. On the roof she uses the phrase "hidden in his greatest creation" which we know is from the manuscript. In fact, we know more than that, we know it is from the pages that Grant hid in the chair because Becky & Alice can't make sense of it until they have those pages and they tell us that in ep 6 - which means Fake Rabbit can't have known it from the time Arby brought it to him and passed the information to her. This means the only time she could have found out is after she rescues them at the warehouse, which is AFTER her plan has played out. (Or the alternative is that someone from the house told her, and since they think she's been executed beside her son would make them an agent after all.)

Another thing has struck me while making a coffee and I can't believe I never picked it up before. Pretend we don't know anything about Milner or Fake Rabbit from ep 6. Why exactly do The Network want the manuscript? They have Janus, otherwise they couldn't have made the vaccine. So why? Keeping Rabbit's name secret is the only motivation, and generally keeping the manuscript out of the public eye. Which works, right? Only then we find out that the molecule itself is hidden in the pages of the comic when you lay it out as a poster (like the final issue of Promethea), that there are numbers in the text which describe what Janus is and how it's produced, and that it's actually all in Jessica's blood anyway - which Milner needs to enact Janus. SO THE WHOLE VACCINE PLOT WAS FAKE.

Umm. Yeah.

and then she kills the tramp so (assuming he was a double agent) the network still don't know where she is.

they don't have janus, they have their attempt at it, which might not work.

My Tramp point wasn't about where she was, it was about whether people knew what she looked like which was seandalai's question.

The 'trial run' was presented all along as a test to see whether it would do exactly what Carville and Rabbit thought it would i.e. sterilise 95% of the population, not whether it would work at all. Now OK, "as it was presented" but the trials they've done to get it to the stage of production they have (and the massive expense incurred as a result - think of the Dugdale panback to show just how much vaccine is in the warehouse) mean that lab results show it works the way it's supposed to. There's a more than convincing argument that says if their attempt at Janus works pretty much exactly like Janus, and a large trial demonstrates it behaves pretty much exactly like Janus, then it might as well be Janus for the purpose of their machinations. Which means they don't need Janus.

The other bit of evidence that implies it's fake/doesn't work is that Milner destroys it all without a second thought. All that time, all that investment, all that Janus-like gone on the off chance that afterwards Jessica will feel guilted into coming to her. That's a seriously massive gamble given you effectively have what you always wanted.

Milner being Mr Rabbit actually makes it all start to unravel.

The other bit of evidence that implies it's fake/doesn't work is that Milner destroys it all without a second thought

hang on - the show claims it doesn't work, you're arguing that doesn't make sense therefore it must be a fake - so that evidence doesn't help either way! i think there are as many holes in your interpretation as in the straightforward reading :)

anyway y'all need to go and watch Edge of Darkness to see this kind of thing done properly.

No, my logic there is that Milner destroys it without a thought therefore she must know it doesn't work, because otherwise you might as well try it given the effort you've put into it and your trials show it works pretty much exactly like Janus. If you wanted a ham and edam sandwich and you'd gone to all the trouble of making a ham and gouda sandwich, after having taste-tested the gouda to see whether it works (which it does) and now it's lunchtime - do you just throw it in the bin because your binman might see it and bring you some edam and you know he has some?

All the show claims is that it might not work exactly like Janus because it isn't exactly Janus.

well we don't know what testing they have done, although yeah they'd be pretty stupid to have gone so far without having some idea that it works. if it comes down to putting my money on crappy writing vs everything we think we know will turn out to be wrong in series 2, i've gotta plump for the former.

if it comes down to putting my money on crappy writing vs everything we think we know will turn out to be wrong in series 2, i've gotta plump for the former.

yep

Though if you believe the story is not altogether a shambles, I guess it comes down to what Milner knows and when; and arguably (for completeness) what Letts/Assistant know and when. And we have no real idea about that.

Trial run also a terrible idea. World reaction to "hey, Britain gave everybody this vaccine and now they're all sterile" presumably not being "ho hum".

Yeah, that never made sense. How do you vaccinate, say, everyone in India or Africa fast enough before people start to notice?

Had the lurgy yesterday so spent the day watching this whole thing while alternately drifting in and out of consciousness and throwing up in a bin. While I enjoyed it I'm kind of glad to get it out of the way on one go so I didn't have to waste my brain trying to figure out the fairly daft plot between episodes. Loved the visuals, there was some really great use of that wide ratio I thought. Sequence that will always stay with me is that one guy posting the envelope and than walking out in front of the truck. Grim. Jessica Hyde was fab. Arby was good too, but his resemblance to Jacko off Brush Strokes was highly distracting.

Some beautiful use of colour in Utopia, visually it has come up with some really memorable stuff but I lost interest in it after the second episode. Really had to push myself to finish the series off after lagging episodes behind.

Back in a fortnight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI5h8yvHIJQ

!!!!!

Kind of prepared to be disappointed tbh

glad to see the dapper hitman guy back, felt like he went too soon in the first series

enjoyed the first series but tbh i can't remember a single thing about it now

Well, that was pretty fucking good.

absolutely loved that

This is brilliant and all the US series are so fucking dire right now, it has arrived at a good time.

is there a decent overview of series 1 anywhere? becuase I also forgot almost everything.

Daily Mail review is a must-read

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2692060/Insulting-crass-Shame-fell-conspiracy-drivel-CHRISTOPHER-STEVENS-reviews-nights-TV.html

I never really got into the first series but last night was great. The historical stuff was v well done. Another lol review: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10965037/How-dare-Channel-4-defame-Airey-Neaves-memory.html

Causing outrage in the Mail/Telegraph zone will no doubt have pleased the makers of this show, almost better than winning a grammy.

"We must consider the likely motives of the film-makers. They hate decency. They hate patriotism. They hate Britain."

Yeah that must be it.

That is a pretty good list of prerequisites for anyone with ambitions of making a decent series.

Episode 2 (Episode 1 proper) was pretty good I thought - a bit too fast-paced to get everything in place by the end of the episode, but I suppose the narrative demanded it.

Looks like this is just going to be them on the run from the Network and/or stopping the distribution of the drugs without the mystery element of the plot - the resolution will be that Janus cures Deels Syndrome, maybe? I suspect the old guy will turn out to be Carvel in the end. And was the head of the charitable trust supposed to be his wife, Piotr and Jessica's mother?

Was also nice to see Philomena Cunk in a serious role, even if it was only a bit part.

This was fun. Still looks and sounds beautiful.

I suspect the old guy will turn out to be Carvel in the end.

Yeah, seems likely.

How do you vaccinate, say, everyone in India or Africa fast enough before people start to notice?

― marc robot (seandalai), Thursday, February 21, 2013 2:59 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess they made an effort to address this.

That Telegraph article is amazing, especially the prerequisite part where he admits he hasn't seen any of it.

i watched S01E01 and thought it was awesome and by E03 completely lost interest :(

i blame jessica hyde's punchable dewy-eyed badass steez and the lens-flarey jj abramsesque wild goose chase vibes

Love both those elements

ugh. i thought her characterization was sub-video game level. which i guess is at least consistent; the show is a bit like watching a very long cut scene from metal gear solid, except the protagonists are standard-issue BBC folx-next-door. "in the 1970s, big boss inherited the plans for a super-vaccine developed with the GRU' secret leader, who was...... MY FATHER. anyone fancy a cup of tea?"

well, it is pretty explicitly a televisual comic book

So we're back in Season 1 mode now. Expository teenage hacker was pointless and crap but otherwise it was a solid episode imo. Arby and Lee still the best characters. They need to do something with Grant. Hope that Anton = Carvel turns out to be a garden path.

Aye, it felt like a lot of running about doing nothing. After S1 turned out to be not nearly as complicated or convoluted as I assumed it was going to be, I watched this far more superficially and it sort of rattled through adding next to nothing; some of us had already assumed that Anton=Carvel so it seemed a bit early to bust that one out and young hacker was just a S1 cipher - delivers the tiniest bit of new information then dies.

The one bit of intrigue - did Dugdale call in the hit on that scientist woman, or did he just sit in his car and watch? I get that he's implicit in the conspiracy and because of his position they can't just kill him at the moment, but does he protest too much that he doesn't want to be part of it?

I assumed that Dugdale did make the call and that the Network have some leverage (his wife + Alice?) to force his cooperation.

I also wonder whether we'll learn that Milner isn't the top level of the Network after all (what was she doing when Carvel first met her?) and she falls out of favour with Higher Up when she starts to flake over Carvel still being alive. It's usually an unsatisfying move when conspiracy shows do this imo (Orphan Black did something similar at the end of S2), but we'll see.

I had assumed Dugdale's wife had just left him - she was on the verge of doing so in S1 anyway and then was used as a weapon against him when the Anya conspiracy was exposed.

Yes, the new Eastern European woman who is head of the trust already seems more/better connected than Milner. I'm wondering whether the Network actually sent her off looking for Jessica just to keep her on the sidelines ("it took me 30 years to find her"), and were maybe explicitly helping Jessica evade her until Milner got lucky at the end of S1. I think the shots of the two women on the sofa were supposed to deliberately mirror the shots of Milner's husband from the prequel descending into alcoholism/uselessness, so imo it's likely she's either heading for a breakdown or being shot. It's hard to imagine the Milner from S1 making such a basic mistake as she does this week with Ian on the phone.

Speaking of Ian, poor Ian, it always happens to him. Framed as a murderer in this series, and as a paedo in the last one. Actually, since he hasn't changed his identity how did the paedo stuff get dealt with?

I am super curious about this, but also a bit tired of high-tension TV shows in which ongoing characters are lovingly tortured or obliterated every other episode. Is it one of those? Or is it one of those, but one worth it anyway?

Or is it one of those, but one worth it anyway?

yep imo

liked eps2+3 but man i wish we were back in the 70s

I would have been happy to stay in the 70's. I didn't realise ep 3 was out there and was expecting that on monday, confusion from using t0rrent sites to watch tv programs.

I am almost certain that the new Eastern European woman character is visually styled after Genisis P Orridge.

Wasn't feeling that episode at all - everything feels a bit predictable and there's no "what the hell is going on?" feeling like in S1.

Was somewhat O_o when they broke into a TV office to get a viral cat video they couldn't access on the internet but I did like the Romanian guy. Episode was a bit of a wash overall.

yeah the rationale for the break-in was ridiculous

I get what you're saying, but the ep really advanced the plot quite a bit. Carvel uncovered (although was he always a survivor? Wasn't he too young in the 70s?), the method for delivering Janus fully exposed, Jessica on the run and Dugdale's family/complicity explained, Milner becoming sidelined and setting up her own agenda...

Oddest thing for me outside of the Ian break-in was Wilson 1) becoming a good shot and 2) not suffering from depth of field issues despite only having one eye.

Visuals department really outdid themselves in this episode. Wish the family reunion had lasted longer, but I guess the plot needed to be driven along.

Yeah, the episode looked really great.

In plot terms it all looks a bit terminal, not sure how it can be pulled back from what Milner's done - although Burger King clearly has some kind of undefined role and I suspect he'll end up being the Maguffin that prevents it. He was obviously tracking, or being told about, the 5 men in charge of the canisters and my guess is that he's a failsafe put in by someone (the woman from the charity maybe?) to recover the canisters if and when Milner carries out her plot, which is why he has currency and a passport to get him into the locations of the virus.

I assumed he was the guy that was going to release the virus?

No, that was covered last episode in dialogue with the guy in the shopping centre food court - pilots are going to release it under the cover story of crop spraying.

I'm a bit hazy on the details but wasn't food court guy one of three people who could be called up to set everything in motion? I figured that Burger King was another one of the three - the one who was actually chosen.

Don't remember the three but you could be right - that there are three options for pilots in each country. But that doesn't square with why Burger King needs passports and currency for each country; that would imply he was going to do them all himself at different times? Surely that would be too liable to failure, that he might only get to deliver one canister before something went wrong? (Although this is also true of him being a failsafe to prevent it all.)

Whole thing seems a bit lower stakes than the first one tbh (hundreds of millions of deaths notwithstanding). And too many minor irritants like "a heights thing" - just close your eyes ffs i'm trying to save your life here.

Wanna know where that ruin on the moors was though.

found it
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Hebden,+Skipton,+North+Yorkshire+BD23/@54.0960259,-1.9579677,318m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x487c08344de97f31:0xdda31bad3a66c662

good find! some more on the area here: http://www.kabrna.com/cpgs/countryside/grassington_home.htm

I was wondering where that was. They also used the Hepworth House in Wakefield for the Network HQ. Hurrah for Yorkshire!

So we're back where we started from, more or less. Hopefully they'll come up with something new for S3.

Are we supposed to understand from the lovely chest-carving scene that Leah is now Mr. Rabbit, or that Wilson actually is Mr. Rabbit but without Milner's sophistication?

I suspect the latter, really.

Yeah, a total nothing ending but I suppose it fits with a "the conspiracy can't be stopped" mentality.

The old, stale electrical appliance dropped in the bath execution scene doesn't quite cut the mustard in the RCBO era, that shit won't give you 70ma through your heart in the millisecs it takes to trip out, not that I would try it at home.

I wished this series had stayed in the 70's, the first episode was the strongest imo.

otm, rest of the run didn't hit those heights

this one sort of felt like it was just shuffling chess pieces around the board

Wish they'd killed off Ian, he really is the worst character.

oh hooray, a us remake.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/feb/13/utopia-hbo-remake-david-fincher-gillian-flynn

oh i didn't know there was a thread. binge-watched this last month and really enjoyed it - so many amazing wide-lens shots that made it seem slightly uncanny, in a sort of computer-generated future kind of way. not especially keen on the set-up for S3, it felt like it had come to a natural conclusion. wilson is no milner. agree that ian should've been killed off, his perpetually outraged sense of normalcy is incredibly wearing. becky is a wonderful character though. i wish they hadn't foisted the dumb love triangle narrative on her and jessica.

wondering what they can do with season 3 now that the 'mystery' is revealed, frankly. Season 2 was a bit boriing and rote for me, some nice moments but it lost that really insane sense of a real life comic in season 1 and never got it back.

I'm interested to see what HBO and Fincher do with this; how closely they'll hew to the storyline or will they just use the premise to do something else insane? It could be good.

i was really put off by the violence, which felt gratuitous to no purpose

no doubt fincher will be "faithful" to that aspect of it

wondering what they can do with season 3 now that the 'mystery' is revealed,

wonder no more.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/utopia-series-3-cancelled-channel-4-pulls-the-plug-to-make-way-for-new-dramas-9785228.html

Not too surprising - ratings were awful iirc and the plot wasn't going anywhere.

yeah it really fell apart in season 2. disappointing. Hope that Fincher does this better in the US. Or at least keeps it to one year.

Finally binged this. Super first series, but the writers made some huge gaffes in the second series, if they were intending a third spoilers I could never buy into Wilson Wilson's moral dilemma (which might makes emotional sense in a moral philosopher but not an uberhacker), the mystery of Mr. Rabbit should have been teased longer, and Lee (yellow-suit) and Terrence (burger sleeper) were key boogiemen worth preserving.

The soundtrack(s) by Cristobal Tapia De Veer are exceptional, best TV soundtracks since Richard Gibbs & Bear McCreary for the BSG reboot. Reminded a bit of Susumu Hirasawa's OST for Paprika

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsJXfkOlCLw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrenNlr1Wzo

The US remake of this is out this year (!), on Amazon (!!) and written by Gillian Flynn (!!!)

Can't say I love the casting for characters Michael Stearns/Dugdale, or what the new Jessica Hyde implies about how the plot will change. Would have prefered a gender swap for Ian (the IT guy) rather than Grant/Alice (the child).

As with Äkta människor/Humans, I expect to pine for a S3 of the originals.

Do you mean her age?

Do we know Grant is definitely not in it? That’s not a full cast by any means (and idk who “Thomas Christie” is meant to be either).

I’ll have a look at this but like you I’ll always want a third series.

Not to get too spoilery here, but in the original, the ethnicity of Jessica Hyde's father plays heavily into the plot. I just don't think it will work as well with a more common ancestry, or one that hasn't suffered the same degree of recent genocide.

Wild guess, Thomas Christie is Lee, but won't have the snazzy lime green suit.

Oh, and the Stearns/Dugdale casting is just too on the nose.

I forgot the girl's name in the original was Alice. Odd to announce that casting and not Grant's.

This went from Fincher/HBO to not-Fincher/Amazon. Hmmm

Not to get too spoilery here, but in the original, the ethnicity of Jessica Hyde's father plays heavily into the plot. I just don't think it will work as well with a more common ancestry, or one that hasn't suffered the same degree of recent genocide.

I know exactly what you mean but I think it makes more sense in an American context? Like the scene in s2 where Becky sends Grant out into the street to find a guy who speaks (redacted) - I’m not sure how you’d make that work in a US context. I mean it would also work if one or both her parents were Rwandan?

Not to get too spoilery here, but in the original, the ethnicity of Jessica Hyde's father plays heavily into the plot. I just don't think it will work as well with a more common ancestry, or one that hasn't suffered the same degree of recent genocide.

I know exactly what you mean but I think it makes more sense in an American context? Like the scene in s2 where Becky sends Grant out into the street to find a guy who speaks redacted - I’m not sure how you’d make that work in a US context. I mean it would also work if one or both her parents were Rwandan?

Actually thinking about it now, there’s no reason to take it at face value. Like Fiona O’Shaugnessy was Irish in the first one & that had exactly zero contribution to the plot, whereas her ethnicity, which she wasn’t even aware of? Very much so.

An Amazon "Original". Do words mean anything anymore?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfMBkiPFh-k

oh, no longer a Fincher thing I see. I'll watch this since it's been a few years since I saw the original; but the second series of the original was a disaster and the whole thing kind of fell apart. maybe they can rectify that.

The reboot has brought some fans of the original out of the woodwork, and one scanned the rare The Utopia Experiments graphic novel produced for the original in its entirety.

Without Neil Maskell as the wheezy psychopath this remake cannot possibly
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/hbo-utopia/images/4/4c/Arby.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140218210738be worth watching.

Assuming Christopher Denham in the Amazon remake is playing the same role as that guy (wikipedia says yes), he's sufficiently creepy imo. I haven't finished this one's first season yet, but I get the impression this one's dialed up the grimness and cast aside the humor nearly altogether.

Downloaded the UK original today, time to finally set up a home Plex again.

Have been watching this! The original is one of the best things I ever saw, series 2 falls off a lot but still great (70s flashback episode is one of my favourite episodes of tv ever). This adaptation is interesting? Feels a bit too on the nose at times, tonally very different and obviously lacking the colour palette/spooky score, but it’s pretty fucked up! Interested in keeping watching all the same.

Christopher Denham btw is very creepy, but in a wholly American way, and he’s not Neil Maskey but it’s a good take on the character.

Suspect that if I already feel Gillian Flynn's an overrated hack then this retread of a better show will not persuade me otherwise.

gyac's critical support making me consider watching this - I too think the first season is amazing and the second season is half amazing/half pointless.

It is critical yeah, it’s a very different beast but interesting if you loved the original as much as I do. We did laugh at the warning before of the episodes that it doesn’t represent a real pandemic, lol. Very timely in terms of the conspiratorial times we live in.

Not having seen the original, the tone of this American version immediately reminded me of the first season of Orphan Black. Had zero clue what would happen in the next five minutes, but couldn't wait to find out. Except with bigger stakes and more explicit body horror (something I can't really cope with too well). Thankfully, those scenes are short and easy to turn away from.

Linking the same sequence in the original series so you can compare without spoiling it for anyone else.

The American one is gorier fwiw

Chris Denham directed a pretty good but hard to Google found-footage horror movie called Home Movie once upon a time.

I'm not gonna check this out though cause the original series was wildly overrated and this is apparently worse

Home Movie is great.

As for the show, I will refrain from being 'that guy' who dips into a thread and shits all over the topic of discussion.

Also anyone who likes Dennis Kelly’s work should be watching The Third Day, which is being dribbled out an episode a week and features gorgeous visuals and a Cristobal Tapia de Veer score like Utopia.

I already feel Gillian Flynn's an overrated hack then this retread of a better show will not persuade me otherwise.

I loved Gone Girl - the movie, anyway - but yeah everything else she's touched not so hot.

The reboot has brought some fans of the original out of the woodwork, and one scanned the rare The Utopia Experiments graphic novel🕸 produced for the original in its entirety.