Did writer Dennis Kelly share in the mass series two nervous breakdown? “You’re faced with the idea of finding new twists or just doing something a bit different. I thought I wouldn’t try and make it too twisty – there’s probably one or two little surprises and things like that – but it’s not quite as twisty as the first one. We know what they are now so it’s really about seeing how the Network works and how the guys who are trying to fight it work, and whether they should fight it.”

Attempting not to repeat himself in series two was a preoccupation for Kelly. “What was difficult writing-wise was not to look back at what you did before and match it. You’ve got this challenge of finding new things and no just thinking, ‘that bit worked well, I’ll take that back, change it a bit and squeeze it in, which I don’t think I’ve done in the new one.”

What Kelly has done in the new one is to expand upon the moral quandary of series one. He admits “the odd thing about the first series was that you didn’t find out what the conspiracy theory really was – the population idea – until episode five. I’m glad that it came so late, but what’s difficult is that the series doesn’t talk about population control until that moment. What was nice about this series is that it can be about that straight away. That is what the entire series is about.”

Leading Utopia’s audience to a position where they can’t outright condemn baddies The Network is partly what the series two opening episode is about. As well as being an eventful, captivating thriller, Utopia’s second series opener is an exercise in empathy. It asks the drama’s audience to accept that the motives of The Network – the shady global organisation behind series one’s plot to sterilise the population – are benevolent, even if their methods are far from it. Kelly argues that The Network’s Janus plan “sort of comes from a good place. They’re trying to solve the world’s problems. I’m not suggesting what they do is right, but they are coming from a good place.”

If not The Network’s solution to overpopulation, then what? Kelly prompts us to ask. “The question at the heart of this is one that nothing in my liberal, woolly, lefty politics gives me an answer to, nothing. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know what we do about it as a species, which is why it’s such an interesting thing to talk about.”