The Greatest Show Ever Cancelled

Utopia (2013-2014) was a British TV show depicting the attempts of a group of ordinary people in their battle against an international organisation plotting to unleash an untold hell upon the world.

The show is centred around a graphic novel that tells the story of a crazed scientist responsible for the creation of a disease which has the potential to spread around the world. There are references to ‘Sar’s being one of theirs’ and after the first few deaths from flu like symptoms in the north of Scotland the whole country ‘are queuing up to get the vaccine in their veins’ but what is the purpose of the disease, the vaccine and what does this international hidden organisation have to hide.

The show is beautifully shot. I mean seriously beautifully shot. The saturation in every scene is ramped up to the max and the colours pulsate out the screen at you. The soundtrack is an epic, twisted blend of minimal EDM and soundbites from the show which is a worthy listen on its own even without watching the show.

Expect to see violence and torture from episode one but notice how these heavy themes sit in conjunction to the beauty and brightness of every shot.

The show takes on an interesting meaning within the coronavirus era. The idea of a global pandemic and the creation of vaccine that everyone will flight to get hold of is set up as an interesting thematic tool to discuss human impact on the world and our future place within it.

The crying shame of Utopia is that basically it cost loads of money to make (relative for an arty, dystopian drama) and that nobody really watched it. The show was clearly written to have three series but was triadically cancelled after season two. Despite online petitions and whole twitter accounts being set up to tweet channel four every day to recommission Utopia was dead and we would never find out just how the story was meant to end. This is a show that if you watched it you loved it. Myself and my flat mates would watch every week with our jaws open wide in shock, almost unable to move or talk after witnessing this unapologetic masterpiece.

Expect plot twists galore, crazed scenes of manic and unimaginable drama and character development that you would never believe if you only watched the first episode singularly.

Amazon purchased the rights to the show and is available to watch on Prime but if it’s ever to come back expect a dull and disjointed American remake that misses all the charm and saturation of the original. I’ll keep tweeting channel four to let them know that I’ll never forget their betrayal to the greatest narrative hardly anyone ever watched.