Utopia

The original Utopia was mysterious with interesting characters.

This show is complete rubbish. The violence is stupid and seems to be purely for shock value. Except it's not shocking when it's so predictable. It simply comes across a trying too hard.

And Jessica Hyde is incredibly unlikeable. Part of it is the character and part of it is the actress (who seems to have a permanent ugly smirk on her face all the time).

First off I want to mention, I did not watch the original. But I enjoyed this version more than I thought, it was an easy show to binge with some great acting. The vfx and shots where subpar to say least but the story was compelling enough.

Is it the besh show ever? Nah. Does it keep you entertained? Yah. Jessica was a super annoying character imo, but she gets a little better later on.

...and changed it to a generous "2". Hollywood has proven themselves as obsolete and talentless.

If anyone that watched this and enjoyed it, it's been canceled.

The UK original is two seasons, and ends with everything explained and closure.

A couple finds a comic book called Utopia while cleaning out their newly purchased home. It's the follow-up to Dystopia, a cult comic book depicting an imprisoned rabbit scientist forced to create apocalyptic viruses. The couple is meeting various fans at a comic book convention to sell the original manuscript. Most are just fans. A few believe that this is more than fiction. It is and there are those who are willing to kill.

I like the UK original, especially the first series. I like its visual style. I like its surrealism. I like its mystery story and I like its brutal violence. For this American version, I knew coming in that it had already been cancelled after its first season. I wanted to check it out anyways. Obviously, the mystery is gone since I've seen the UK version. The style feels less unique. The show is keeping the weirdness but the visual is not as cool. The pilot episode needs to start with some brutal violence like the UK version. There is no need to save any of that. The bloody violence is a big part of the show. I would have liked to keep Rothe. She's the best comedic actor in the group along with Dan Byrd. Maybe she could have been a good Jessica Hyde. I love Sasha Lane but Rothe has more comedic chops. Sasha delivers more instability but that also makes it questionable why the group stays with her. This one needs to exploit more of its comedy.

The unnamed elephant in the room is Covid. The story is uncomfortably close and uses a conspiracy theory that touches upon the reality outside our windows. It's too close and too soon. It's uncomfortable in many different ways. It's also too convoluted. Of course, it's contrived but it feels contrived. There are too many things that are too unreal. The evil scheme has some unrealistic holes and is overly complicated. The conspiracy is too big to keep secret. In the end, it wraps a short eight episode first season and gets cancelled before moving on to a second.

This show was made for a younger demographic than the original. Having high hopes for this, I was terribly disappointed when after just a few minutes, I realized that this is more like, 'Bride of Chucky', than it was like, 'Saw'.

If I had to pick the one thing that irks me most it would be using the original intellectual material, yet changing it to create a new project. All this does is create a completely derivative product. An example of this would be Wilson Wilson's character. He's almost exactly the same as the original. The original Jessica Hyde is sexy and likeable although clearly a sociopath in her mid to late 30s. This new Jessica looks like a homeless person with gross dreadlocks in her early 20s ready to go to an Ani DiFranco concert. She utterly unlikable. But worst of all is what they did with the Arby character, and the character origin stories.

The violence in the show didn't drive home the intensity of it's purpose. It seemed prattish and gummy. More like, 'Harley Quinn', than, 'Jason Bourne'.

If I hadn't seen the original I would have never finished this show. But to be fair I did. Clearly it was a disappointment to me after having high hopes. I am losing faith in Amazon's ability to produce high quality shows like Hulu, HBO or Netflix. The one show I really enjoy started off on SyFy and is Jeff Bezos favorite show.

I would be shocked if this gets a second season once people seek out the original and realize just how bamboozled they've been. I can guarantee you won't find it on Amazon.