It all adds up to an enticing invitation to a parallel world, a rabbit hole I’m happy to fall into. The marketing push behind Utopia is almost as entertaining as the show itself, a nifty campaign of clever-clever personalised videos and cartoony yellow ads. The blind bunker shoot-out was a deft piece of high tension, too, a calling card for what is hopefully to come in future weeks.Īll that, and I haven’t even touched upon the sickening torture scene (apt that it should debut in a week where every Oscars conversation not about Ben Affleck’s beard was dominated by an eddy of on-screen torture controversy courtesy of Kathryn Bigelow) which was as horrible a thing as I’ve witnessed on television since Ann Widdecombe did Strictly. Munden’s direction was full of neat touches, from the first violent death at the aptly named Doomsday Comics, to Bejan’s Mad Men-opening credits-ish fall. In terms of the cast, Four Lions’ Adeel Akhtar emerges as an early stand-out as Wilson Wilson, along with bag of nerves Paul Higgins as Dugdale, and spirited Alexandra Roach as PhD wannabe Becky (after her clipped English diction in Hunderby and The Iron Lady, what joy it is to hear those valleys-vowels). Your common or garden Big Pharma ‘all the way to the top’ conspiracy then, just with genetic mutations, prophesied pandemics and Devil-rabbit hybrids. In short: they’re everywhere, they know everything, and they’ll stop at nothing. We also need to know that the world of Utopia is facing a grave food shortage (albeit one that doesn’t seem to have reached our pals in leafy London), and that whoever is behind the Network goons has enormous bureaucratic power, enough to frame their enemies as sex offenders and falsify medical records. Why is The Utopia Experiments Two manuscript so coveted? Because it was written by a modern-day Nostradamus (or delusional paranoid schizophrenic and former geneticist), and thought to contain information about future global catastrophes, specifically, info regarding a drug company, former employees of which developed the man-made neuro-degenerative disorder that killed Becky’s father. (By the by, it might be worth popping out for a quick fag or putting the kettle on about now, because we’ve not even finished with the summary yet.) He duly does so said boss resigns in disgrace and replacement Geoff is revealed to be also part of the political conspiracy along with two gloriously oily politicians played by Stephen Rea and James Fox. Having done the dirty with a prostitute and left her pregnant, Dugdale is blackmailed to carry out a “mission” for some shadowy types, which involves tricking his boss to sign off on the purchase of £20 million worth of Russian flu vaccines. In parallel to the henchmen/forum story is that of senior civil servant Michael Dugdale ( The Thick of It’s Paul Higgins), whom we meet at his lowest ebb. There was a fifth member of the group – high-flyer Bejan, who fell afoul of the Network henchmen and was pushed to a fatal exit from his Kennington penthouse. Running from them is newly formed group of fugitives, Becky, Ian, and Wilson (Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and Adeel Akhtar), forum friends and The Utopia Experiments fans, who are presumably soon to be joined by young Grant (Oliver Woolford), the schoolboy currently in possession of the in-demand manuscript. Operatives of the shady Network, the pair is tasked with retrieving the manuscript of doom-prophesying graphic novel The Utopia Experiments Two, and locating the mysterious Jessica Hyde. In the villains’ corner are two chillingly focused executioners, a raisin-munching hard-man with one question on his lips ( Kill List’s Neil Maskell), and his sadistic accomplice (Paul Ready).
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