Utopia

 

"What have you done today to earn your place in this crowded world?" That classic line both introduces and summarizes the TV series Utopia, which is another Amazon Prime exclusive like The Man in the High Castle which I reviewed previously, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-man-in-high-castle-updated-review.html. Utopia was recommended to me by Gareth Davies of the Mind Set Podcast. He said it was loaded with information, and it is. However the information within it is truly shocking. I needed to see it and I'm glad Gareth told me about this, but a part of me wishes he hadn't. It is one of the most disturbing programmes I've ever seen on television. To begin with, it is extremely violent. It has a 15 certificate so I was unprepared for the severity of the violence depicted. Maybe this is just a sign that I haven't watched much TV over the last few years; because since I did, the window of tolerance has significantly broadened. The violence in Utopia would have been unthinkable just a decade or two ago for an 18 certificate film, let alone a 15. This includes scenes with formerly taboo content, such as children being murdered. When one person is killed, the body is left lying on the floor and people go about their lives normally around it. When blood is splashed on somebody's car following one of the deaths, it is not washed off. The protagonists are not admirable figures. They are immature and foolish; and, in the case of their ringleader Jessica, a cruel and ruthless antihero. In one scene they kill an entire colony of rabbits by shooting and burning them. The programme is about subjects that are extraordinarily close to real life, especially the COVID 19 pandemic. I know that making a complex TV show takes time, with script writing, production design, casting etc. This means that work on Utopia must have already been well underway when the lockdown began. It is said that life imitates art, but it rarely does it so closely and at the same time! I can't help wondering if somebody knew in advance what was planned and decided to give out the information in fictional allegory. Interestingly, before every episode Amazon has put up a disclaimer saying that the programme is "not based on an actual pandemic or related events"; I wonder... See: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8303474/.
 
The story begins with a bunch of comic readers meeting up at a comic convention; needless to say they are all Americans. They are lovers of a graphic novel called Dystopia. It is by an anonymous artist, but fascinates them because it appears to predict events which ended up coming true. So when they hear that somebody has discovered an unpublished sequel called Utopia, they are enthralled. They pay handsomely for a chance to view this unique previously unseen strip. Their fun turns to horror though when everybody who looks at the manuscript ends up being shot by a pair of assassins. At the same time a deadly new form of influenza breaks out in a number of locations that kills everybody infected by it. However, the virus is quickly isolated and a vaccine is discovered by a medical researcher called Dr Michael Stearns who is working for a biotechnology company run by a sinister character called Dr Kevin Christie. It soon turns out that the pandemic is an artificial one created by Christie's industry to create a market for the vaccine. The vaccine itself has a catastrophic hidden objective. The catchphrase about a person earning their place in a crowded world echoes exactly what real people have said about the supposed overpopulation of man on this planet. Another word used over and over in the dialogue, loaded with extra meaning, is "purpose". There are those at the extreme end of the environmentalist movement who talk openly about the need for a human cull. They use terms like "useless eaters". Few of them relish this grim task, but as the Dr Christie character says: "How much evil do you have to do to do good?" The world is in fact not overpopulated and I explain why in the background links; but so long as enough people believe the Malthusian nightmare, they will justify any atrocity necessary to save the earth from what they dread even more. Secretly, the end result planned is the New World Order. Dr Christie is just such a person. He also runs a secret compound called "the Home" where he raises multiple children. Some of them are trafficked from distant lands and others are bred for their "purpose!". Some have abilities which would fit the description of a "supersoldier". Many are twins or triplets. Oddly enough in one scene two identical young blonde women are seen wearing tracksuits. This reminds me of the mystery surrounding Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLeTBnKw7nI. The children are mind controlled and psychologically abused; kept as slaves by Christie and his team. Some of them are used in medical experiments. The team also have the ability to create fake news in the mainstream and social media. They have to power to frame people for crimes. In one scene where a character is killed in an accident, Christie needs to make it look like suicide, so he generates an entire fake life for the man, including correctly dated back-filled disinformation; actors to play his family and friends etc. Utopia is a very ugly, frightening and upsetting story. The background to the Jessica character is especially harrowing. However, at times it is darkly funny. How much the producers knew about the reality behind the plot, I don't know. They might be insiders trying to get the word out through Utopia, like the fictional comic in the programme. Screenwriters and directors sometimes encode their works with hidden messages that can be deciphered. On the other hand, they may simply be picking up something morphic in the air, which creative people often do. There are plenty of other examples of artists including conspiratorial and esoteric themes in their works, but Utopia is among the least subtle of them. Why is it so blatant? Could it have emerged out of the same energetic circumstances that have led to real life conspiracies being so much more visible than they used to? The last episodes ends without conclusion and the series is called "Season One", which means we will have to wait for future episodes to find out what happens next.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/ben-emlyn-jones-live-at-truth-seekers.html.
And: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2020/08/programme-381-podcast-nick-kollerstrom.html.
And: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2012/03/some-of-them-are-on-our-side.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2011/01/erik-pianka-and-overpopulation.html.