Utopia (2013) Review: Paranoia in Acid Yellow

Is Utopia worth watching?

Yes. Utopia is a startlingly original British conspiracy thriller, and its look, sound and deadpan menace still feel unlike anything else on television. Dennis Kelly’s series turns a cult comic, a shadowy organisation and a group of ordinary misfits into twelve episodes of escalating dread. The reservations are real, though: the violence is extreme, the second series is less tightly wound than the first, and cancellation left the story without a proper ending.

What is Utopia about?

The Utopia Experiments is a cult graphic novel with a legend attached, and a small band of its online fans are thrilled when an original manuscript of a sequel surfaces. The strangers arrange to meet in person. Almost at once, their lives are torn apart: people start dying, and a pair of soft-spoken killers begins working through anyone who has touched the pages. Fleeing together, the fans discover that the comic may hold far more than fiction, and that a mysterious figure named Jessica Hyde is at the centre of it.

Created and written by Dennis Kelly, Utopia is an English-language series from the United Kingdom that aired on Channel 4. This review covers the whole show: two series and 12 episodes, broadcast in 2013 and 2014. It was cancelled after the second run, so the story stops at an unresolved point.

A thriller that looks and sounds like nothing else

The first thing anyone remembers about Utopia is its colour. The images are saturated to the point of hallucination, with fields of sickly yellow, violent greens and bright blue skies that make ordinary English towns look like panels from a comic. Wide, symmetrical compositions leave characters stranded in empty space, which suits a story about people who have suddenly realised how exposed they are.

The score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer is just as distinctive: clattering, breathy and percussive, it sounds as if it were built from strange found objects. It turns even quiet scenes uneasy. Together, the pictures and music give Utopia an identity so complete that the show has been imitated far more often than it has been matched.

Deadpan menace and a strong ensemble

Kelly’s writing gives the violence a horrible calm. The killers speak politely, ask banal questions and then do terrible things, and the contrast is more frightening than any amount of shouting. Neil Maskell is especially unnerving as a hitman whose flat, halting manner hides a disturbing emptiness.

The fans on the run are well cast as people with no aptitude for adventure. Adeel Akhtar is superb as a paranoid conspiracy theorist who turns out to be less mad than everyone assumed, and his performance supplies both comedy and some of the series’ most painful moments. Alexandra Roach and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett ground the group, while Fiona O’Shaughnessy gives Jessica Hyde a feral, wounded intensity. Oliver Woollford holds his own as a young boy caught up in the chase.

Cruelty, sprawl and an ending that never came

Utopia is sometimes cruel in ways that feel designed to shock rather than to mean something, and one early torture sequence is hard to watch. The second series widens the conspiracy with bold structural choices but loses some of the first run’s tight, headlong pull, as the plotting grows more convoluted. Because Channel 4 did not commission a third series, several threads are left hanging, and viewers who need closure should know that going in. An American remake followed on Amazon in 2020, but the original remains the version worth seeking out.

Who should watch Utopia?

It is for viewers who like conspiracy thrillers, British genre television with a streak of black comedy, and shows with a strong visual signature. It is not for the squeamish: the violence is graphic, including torture and point-blank killings, and the series carries adult ratings in most territories. At 12 hour-long episodes, it is a quick binge.

If Utopia works for you, try:

• Black Mirror for more British speculative fiction that turns modern anxieties into nightmares.
• Misfits for another UK genre show about young outsiders, with dark humour and sudden violence.
• Inside No. 9 for macabre comedy that can turn cruel in an instant.

The verdict

Utopia is a daring, beautifully designed conspiracy thriller whose atmosphere and performances make it essential viewing for fans of the genre. Its cruelty and its unfinished second series keep it just short of greatness, but few British dramas have left such a vivid mark in so few episodes.

Rating: 4/5