![]() It informs you that the show is a work of fiction not based on actual, related, or current events. Amazon Very dark and darkly funny, Utopia is a bumpy, arresting thriller thats. When five strangers from an online comic book forum agree to meet after gaining possession of the original manuscript for the cult graphic novel The Utopia Experiments, they find themselves pursued by a shadowy organisation known as The Network who are in pursuit of the manuscript - and they are. The first thing you see when you begin streaming Utopia on Amazon Prime is a disclaimer. ![]() My tip for watching this show is to try your best to set aside your biases about current events and realize this show came out in 2013. Dan Byrd, Desmin Borges, Jessica Rothe, and Ashleigh LaThrop star in Amazons new sci-fi series Utopia. There's just enough explanation to appease but not too much to have obvious plotholes which detract from the story. Further, the vision of a 'utopia' and the underlying philosophy trigger some machiavellian zeal in the 'network's' participants as the shady organization is mostly bound together by this set of ideals. A group of young adults get a hold of a cult underground graphic novel, which puts them in the crosshairs of a deep state organisation. Not that unique admittedly, but the execution is what sets this plot apart. Especially in the hands of showrunner/writer Gillian Flynn (based on a Channel 4 series in the UK by Dennis Kelly), it's been designed in part to push people’s buttons about the kind of stories that you can and can’t tell. It's a conspiracy show, where each cog isn't entirely aware of how they fit into the machine. Amazon's 'Utopia' is an at-times maddening, at-times fascinating, but always twisty show that thrives on shocking you. The plot is hard to get into without spoilers. No scene is overburdened by a blaring soundtrack competing with the actors, nor is the soundtrack relegated to the intro, cutscenes, or so quiet as to give a sense that the audio mixer gave up. There isn't a typical reliance on a melody for many of his songs. He utilizes ululation and chopping of vocals from the scenes to produce some of the most haunting and exciting soundtracks that are to the credit of the producers, mixed in largely perfectly. There's a reason this was his breakout performance. The music by Cristobal Tapia de Veer is offensively fitting. The camera will remain in a seemingly awkward position to express the magnitude of action or the minimalism of a character. Scene duration and framing are executed with a precision of a swiss watch - always exactly as long as necessary to express a plot point or develop a character and no further. ![]() This show is undeniably perfect in its genre. ![]()
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