Utopia

I've been meaning to write something about this for a while now but I held off until watching the finale, then it was just sheer laziness... So here goes. Utopia is a Channel 4 drama about what can essentially be summed up as 'that scary show about the comic book.'* It's hard to describe, but I'll give it a stab, it's a six part series of episodes about a bunch of disconnected people brought together by a bizarre one off comic book, the comic depicts a dystopian world in which... Fuck knows what is happening, it's never spelt out, but it looks disturbing and haunting. There is a shady government organisation, known as the Network, planning the mass sterilisation of the human race and a complex web of alliances between the characters connecting them to the Utopia comic and the Network, they are all hunting for the manuscript of the second edition of the comic book. A mad man in a mental health hospital drew the comics and was a part of the plan, he was a bit of a mad scientist type and pretty much wrote the whole dastardly plan of mass sterilisation into his scrawling, except it was all disturbingly drawn metaphorical images. The pictures are pretty weird. It sounds pretty weird but Utopia tries to walk the fine line of realistic and all out dystopian fantasy, characters will die, no one is safe, it's gruesome and unsafe in this universe and most importantly, because of all this, it's damn scary.

The show plays on the level of control that a select few have on the majority, the fact that such a plan exists and that the fate of the planet is being decided by a tiny selection of individuals with control over just about everything. It also taps into the paranoia of the modern age and pretty much no one can be trusted, everyone is under suspicion and even established characters through the progress of the episodes have their own secret agendas, beliefs and alliances simmering under the surface. I think what makes Utopia a cut above just about everything else I've watched this year, is how unflinchingly daring it is. It's audacious because it's forcing us to look at our modern society and see that we have next to no control over our destiny, someone somewhere in a darkened office with (some pretty damn creepy) oak carvings on the wall, in leather chairs, are deciding our futures. We can be tracked from any location, any person can be against us, no one can be trusted, they will find you through your phone, through security cameras, they can trace you and find you, there is nowhere to hide. This isn't a unique idea but it is executed here with great skill and although the whole series is pure fantasy there is a very real base to all of it's ridiculousness.

So Utopia manages to create an aura of paranoia throughout, this is scary in itself but the show decides to ramp up the fear factor to the nth degree by including some pretty gratuitous violence. It'll become apparent that Utopia takes a lot inspiration from comic books as you watch it for various reasons but it's inclusion of violence feels particularly comic book styled. When you're finding it hard to figure out if you can trust any of the main characters, there is the added layer that even you're uncertain of their motives any of them could at any moment be maimed or killed, and that's not to say their family members get off lightly.This brings us to the first episode which I feel the need to discuss straight off the bat specifically for the violent world it introduces us to.

As with any television series the first episode/pilot's purpose is to lay groundwork for the rest of the series, it's supposed to hook our attention and give us an idea what we're getting let in for. The first episode of Utopia immediately starts with a confrontation at a comic book shop, with a man dressed as a rabbit hanging about outside, Arby, a character I will talk about a lot more later, with his accomplice Lee dispatch everyone inside with cold unflinching efficiency. Want a taste of Utopia? Well there you have it, triple homicide in the first scene, and no they don't spare the small boy hiding in there. The episode spends a lot of time jumping about laying down some integral threads and it can seem a bit bamboozling at first as you have a bunch of comic book nerds joining up and the little kid running around, then there is the pair of sinister chaps leaving a trail of bodies behind them as they interrogate people with a single chilling question, 'Where is Jessica Hyde?' And also there's a guy working in the government being extorted into getting some Russian Flu vaccines ordered for an unconfirmed epidemic. Lots of weird stuff going on but the only thing, I think, anyone will remember is Wilson Wilson's torture scene.

Nothing surprises me in films/television any more, if someone is going to get murdered/tortured there is always a certain level that it's pushed to, you can watch it because you know it'll be over soon enough. It's just always on the right side of 'Ouch', like they're getting electrocuted or stabbed, and you know anything wouldn't want to push it too far through fear of upsetting someone, there's always a ceiling on these things. It just makes torture scenes completely not scary because you know there are limits that the people making it have to follow. Or so it goes in what I watch. Well in Utopia the torturer describes how most people go for the finger nails, the feet and so on, Lee likes to go for the eyes. He has a selection of dishes, each containing something you really shouldn't put in your eyes, a then a spoon. He starts with some fresh red chillis, he proceeds with some sand, then he continues with the bleach, and as the unrelenting camera shows us, he finishes it off with his spoon, all whilst his partner in crime, Arby, interrogates the hapless victim with the ominous question: 'Where is Jessica Hyde?'. Now don't get me wrong, even writing that down it's ridiculously over the top and grotesque and most importantly stupid, but I literally haven't cringed so much watching anything in forever. I was so close to covering my own eyes or running away when there was a blessed relief of the scene ending. This is the scene that many people from what I've read and heard turned off Utopia, because as I might mention several times, this show is fucked up, and coincidentally a lot of reviewers, myself included, spent a lot of time talking about it. It was a strong opening statement for the show and it didn't lighten up from this point (the torture scenes weren't half as bad, but yes, there were more torture scenes.)

Another reason people felt the need to turn off the television, and also caused some controversy, was the fact that Utopia had no problem killing children in cold blood. No one is safe, if you need to be hammered over the head with it, then nothing is more disturbing than the fact that The Network does not consider any life more significant than their goal, and this ruthlessness is integral to Utopia as a whole. Sure it'll upset some people, even I felt a bit distressed at the sight of a school massacre taking place thanks to Arby and his almost unflinching efficiency at his job. Sure, America is currently having a debate about gun violence and a school massacre taking place, hence why I highly doubt it will ever air there, especially while those wounds are still fresh, but Utopia acknowledges that shit like this happens. The mass public hysteria that accompanies it is also duly touched upon, but this is all in order to tell the story and to stress the danger of The Network; the lives of children are considered collateral damage, this isn't a picnic folks, this is something bigger than you can expect. It sure is ballsy of Channel 4 to air this, to be perfectly honest it makes it even more of an interesting project; because it is a reflect on modern society and shit like this happens. I don't agree with it in the slightest, I even though the school massacre was a bit too on the nose, but doesn't mean I don't acknowledge it takes some serious balls to air that, it's a part of the story, they aren't changing it.
So I've discussed the violence, the torture, onto less touchy subjects. Utopia isn't just disturbing in it's storytelling, the music merges with the disturbing mood. The music is something I can't even describe but oh good god if there is more surreal spine chilling music playing in a tv show anywhere in the world right now I need to know, because this is top notch scary shit. Tv music should enhance the scene, it shouldn't drown it out or take you out of the action, this is why I dislike hearing tv shows using music I have on my iPod, or popular tunes, because it immediately drags my focus from what's going on and makes me think about my own interpretation of the music and 90% of the time just doesn't fit. This is some original music composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, nope I have no idea either, and I couldn't tell you how they made it but it's used sparingly so that it doesn't obstruct anything, but it just sounds so good and it fits. Perhaps it's just me but there are some random female voices that make some indistinguishable noises in the music that sound just like Jessica Hyde and then there is something which sounds like heavy mouth breathing which is just like Arby, just me? The episode ends and you're thrown into the theme music and it jolts you back to reality, it was damn good in my opinion.

So if the music sets the mood then it's the cinematography*** that also does a lot of heavy lifting. I've read around a lot and no one has really mentioned that for a TV show about a comic book, the entire thing is shot from a graphic novel-like perspective, every shot could be a frame from a comic book, the angles and the composition. It just felt like, to me anyway, that Utopia was emulating the fact it was about a graphic novel, by literally just being a live-action version of that medium. The way each shot is composed is very specific and the camera is placed in significant positions to replicate the angles and positions of a graphic novel. Another example would probably Scott Pilgrim VS the World but obviously that used to additional noise events, words appearing on the screen and cartoonish additions to emphasise this. Utopia is a more subdued subtle way of showing this and doesn't trumpet this connection it simply works it's magic by immersing you and showing you the dramatic scenes with artistic flair. Then there is the colours, acid yellow is the shade chosen for the title card and it permeates throughout the series punctuating several scenes from time to time worming throughout each episode, it's small details like Lee and Arby's bag, or the colour of a wall or something like that but it feels significant again. But everything is also massively saturated, the grass is literally bright crayon green, the sky is periwinkle blue, every colour is, dare I say cartoonishly vibrant but not to the point where it is ridiculous, a field of heather swaying in the wind saturated bright purple with a clear blue sky over it is an ominous scene setter, Arby tramping over some bright green grass is alarming rather than silly, and the blood of someone being shot in the head being ruby red is just gruesome. Plus they don't overdo it, it's just adding the graphic novel feel of Utopia, it's a fantasy of course but it's steeped in reality. Visually it's just beautiful to watch. Plus the events take place in some pretty interesting places, the characters find themselves squatting in an abandoned manor house for the majority of the last leg of episodes which is run down and archaic as they try to protect the future of humanity, it's quite a nice juxtaposition, plus they have lots of scenes in fields. Not to mention my favourite set, the seeming office/headquarters of The Network chaps, it's a small back room kind of office with mahogany walls carved with (what I can only assume are) disturbing images of wars/heaven/hell-scapes etc, and they sit in their leather bound chairs, the natural light limited, it's dark and it's scary and the sinister men making decisions are suitably creepy. It's a great image.

All this jibber-jabber and I still haven't really discussed the plot or the characters. I'll try and keep this brief as this is ballooning and has taken me days to write and Utopia finished about 5 days ago now and I want to get this up before 4OD starts taking it down.****

Ok, so the characters, there are a whole mess of them to keep track of, but you have the core group of people who are intrigued by the original Utopia graphic novel, they all log into a chat room to discuss the meanings of it and the intricacies of the images. They are all pretty normal people, there's a Scottish girl who's father knew the person who wrote Utopia, there's a tech geek, there is a highly paranoid better tech geek, a kid and another dude who doesn't last long. They hear that a second manuscript has been discovered, a sequel so to speak, and they meet up to look at it as one of them somehow came across it, the guy who doesn't last long. While this is happening you have Arby and his associate trying to track down the manuscript (murderously) and also searching for the mysterious Jessica Hyde. She appears at the end of the first episode, she is a ghost and in hiding, her father was the one who created Utopia and she also wants to get a hold of the second manuscript and stop whatever nefarious plot The Network has planned; this is embedded in her father's drawings as he worked for them as a mad scientist type and was admitted to a mental health institution and died not long after creating the two Utopia manuscripts. Right? Well, then there is a man called Dugdale who works for the government who has done the nasty with a Russian prostitute who is now pregnant and The Network are forcing him to put through an order for a Russian Flu vaccine and he is trying to figure out why, and you know prevent the disintegration of his marriage. I really don't want to go into it any further than that, the core group become embroiled in the tale when it Arby and his mate come along and figure they know where Jessica Hyde is, and the second Utopia and all hell breaks loose. Each of them have their own set of motivations and hidden agendas and worries, you can genuinely can't tell which way any of them will go. Some have launched the complaint that the characters are too thinly drawn to be believable, to them I say bollocks. It's not a character driven story to start with and no knowing their deepest emotions is what keeps us guessing as to which way they will go. The characters are all reactionaries to the mayhem taking place around them, we don't have time to know them as deeply realised people because they are constantly reacting to the plot. I think they serve well through the story, and to be honest there are the ones you like, the ones you can't quite peg, and the ones who are completely unpredictable, but by the end of the six episodes you're ensconced enough that you care what happens to them.

Right so I've ran out steam now. Utopia is something different, lately every TV drama that seems to be churned out are just the same. It's all either period dramas, or crime procedurals, or family drama, or a combo, but this was unique. Utopia presents something gripping, genuinely scary, and it's not afraid to make an indictment on modern society and make guesses at the realistic grim possibilities of our future. This along with Black Mirror (Charlie Brooker's tv series about the ever growing effects of technology on people and society) are both a bleak outlook for the future and the results aren't because of war, they are about the advances and expansion of the world around us. Sure the future is bleak, but it's when it's observed in a dramatic realistic and refreshing manner it can provide us with some food for thought. Plus we can throw a splash of audacious colourful insanity in the mix and have something new actually entertaining! Needless to say, there needs to be more television as daring and crazy as Utopia flying around, not stealing the ideas, just the spirit of bleak but crazy entertainment which challenges us as viewers instead of wrapping a comfort blanket around us.


*Quote from mate at work.

** Yeah, his name is stupid, Wilson Wilson, if I remember correctly I think his Dad is Milton Wilson or something to that affect and someone just responds with 'What the fuck is your family on?' 

*** I still have an unquenchable hatred for that word...

 **** For international readers - if you exist - use tunnelbear to access 4OD on your PC, if you want to watch this.