Utopia's second series came to an end this week in typically explosive fashion.

We won't spoil things, but it's not a big secret to say that we were left on a knife-edge, with the future of our lead characters and the rest of the planet not exactly secure.



To sum up the first 12 hours without giving too much away, a bunch of geeky types obsessed with comic book The Utopia Experiments meet up and uncover a deadly conspiracy.

Unlikely alliances form and fracture. Authority is depicted as the corrupt, dangerous force we all deep down fear it to be.

Our enemies are driven by an invincible mix of unfeeling ideology, emotional weakness and amoral attachment to ends over means - their weapons are blackmail and sickening violence.

The old X-Files mantra of "Trust No One" and Larkin's This Be The Verse never feel more true - but who can survive without family and friends?

Questions of morality and humanity are asked but we're left to answer them ourselves. For every layer of the onion that gets peeled off, a countless number still seem to remain.

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But will we find out where the story goes next? After the first series kicked off with a healthy thwack of viewers, the numbers have steadily dwindled since, putting a third run very much in doubt.

If we're left where we are, it'll be a terrible shame. Utopia is one of the best TV shows of recent years and deserves to continue.

Dark, intelligent, striking and ambitious - it makes a mockery of claims that UK TV cannot compete with high-budget US drama.

Utopia shuns usual dramatic cliché in favour of a gritty hyperrealism that transfixes. Its characters are neither likeable nor love-to-hate, but complex, awkward so-and-sos.

Swear-happy Welsh student Becky (Alexandra Roach) and IT worker Ian (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) are the closest things we have to heroes, but make enough mistakes and moral mess-ups for their humanity to shine through.

Then there's confused conspiracy nut Wilson Wilson (Adeel Akhtar), dead-eyed assassin Arby (Neil Maskell) and the mysterious Jessica Hyde (Fiona O'Shaughnessy) - a cross between Natalie Portman's Mathilda and Scarlett Johansson's Lucy/Black Widow.

Channel 4



You ask yourself if someone is good or bad. Answering that in many cases is like nailing jelly to a wall. That's because despite all the madness on screen, these characters still feel more like real people than those in much more "naturalistic" dramas.

Utopia has a look so distinct you can always tell what you're watching within seconds - the saturated colour scheme and Dulux yellows and bight greens are a welcome-if-overwhelming contrast to a decade of grey/green cinema murk.

Yes, the violence is bloody, frequent and (literally) eye-poppingly graphic. But if you're going to depict someone being shot in the head on TV, it's arguably more irresponsible to not have their blood and brains splatter everywhere.

It's not for the faint hearted, but the right to show all that gore is more than earned in the storytelling and style.

If Utopia does end now, its cult status will likely grow. The DVD sales will mount up until a probably ill-advised return or spinoff years too late is given the go ahead. Let's not make that mistake.

Channel 4's remit calls for "high quality and diverse programming". Shows are meant to boast "innovation, experimentation and creativity" and "a distinctive character". If they're serious about that, then we, and creator Dennis Kelly, have nothing to worry about.

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