Reviews
Utopia Falls (2020)
Fun and powerful at points, but too much mish mash of concepts
If you can get past the first couple of episodes, this show is quite powerful. It is powered by old-school hip-hop and teaches kids the power of learning from the past in order to deal with the struggles many of us face in the future.
As a show, however, the weird performance aspect seems like they tried to mix Hunger Games with High School Musical in a way that totally did not work. I can see how this show was made by Apple to try and target a wide range of target audiences and that did not work in its favour. The whole direction media is going is to serve different groups. Cater to each of them separately instead of trying to put them all together so you get better ratings and more $$.
That said, the show did move me. I felt emotionally engaged with the themes of resistance and collective organising and how well power works to stop change from happening. The soundtrack was great (the lip sync not so much).
I wish they had more shows like this when I was a teen. Would have felt a little more like I belonged.