Skip to main content

Utopia (2020) – A Great Premise Lost in Chaos

 

Utopia - 2020

If there’s one thing that makes people click on a show, it’s a strong premise. And on paper, Utopia had everything going for it: a mysterious comic book that might predict real-world disasters, conspiracy theories, a deadly pandemic, and a group of misfits trying to uncover the truth.

Sounds incredible, right?

That’s exactly why the disappointment hits so hard.

I went into this series without watching the original UK version, so this review comes purely from the perspective of someone judging the 2020 adaptation on its own. And honestly? I couldn’t even make it past episode three.

A Premise That Hooks You Immediately

At first, Utopia feels strange in a good way.

The opening episodes create this unsettling atmosphere where you’re not entirely sure what’s happening, but you want answers. The mystery surrounding the comic book is genuinely intriguing, and the idea that fiction could secretly reflect reality is a concept that instantly grabs attention.

For a moment, the show feels bold, weird, and potentially brilliant.

But then everything spirals into complete nonsense.

Violence Without Purpose

One of the biggest problems with Utopia is how absurdly violent it becomes.

Violence in television can work when it serves the story or develops characters. Here, it often feels random, excessive, and emotionally empty. Characters die suddenly, brutal things happen constantly, and yet the show barely gives anyone time to react like actual human beings.

That disconnect completely killed the tension for me.

There’s one moment in particular where a friend is killed, and the group barely seems to care afterward. Instead of grief or shock, the story just moves on as if nothing happened. It becomes impossible to emotionally invest in characters when the show itself doesn’t seem interested in them.

Jessica Hyde Completely Kills the Show

The moment Jessica Hyde (Sasha Lane) enters the story, the series falls apart.

She’s clearly meant to be this mysterious, dangerous, unpredictable figure. But instead of becoming compelling, she just turns the show into a chaotic mess. The character feels more irritating than interesting, and the writing expects viewers to instantly accept her behavior without earning it.

The problem isn’t that she’s weird - the problem is that the show mistakes “being bizarre” for “being fascinating.”

None of the characters is charismatic enough to make their strange personalities enjoyable. They’re awkward, erratic, and emotionally flat, but not in a memorable or entertaining way.

Ironically, the kid - Grant (Javon 'Wanna' Walton) - in the group was probably the most likable character. He brought at least some humanity to the story. Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to save the series.

The Pandemic Storyline Never Convinces

Considering Utopia revolves around conspiracy theories and a pandemic-related plot, you would expect the story to become smarter and more gripping as it unfolds.

Instead, it becomes harder to take seriously.

The show tries so hard to be shocking and edgy that it forgets to build a believable world or coherent narrative. The mystery stops feeling mysterious and starts feeling random. By episode three, I wasn’t curious anymore — I was exhausted.

There’s a difference between a story being unpredictable and a story simply making no sense.

Utopia constantly crosses that line.

A Massive Missed Opportunity

What frustrates me most about Amazon Prime Video’s Utopia is that the idea itself had enormous potential.

A hidden comic predicting catastrophic events? Secret organizations? A deadly global conspiracy? That could have been an unforgettable thriller.

Instead, the series delivers shallow shock value, disconnected characters, and chaos disguised as depth.

Maybe fans of the original series will disagree. Maybe the UK version handles these ideas better. But as a standalone experience, the 2020 adaptation feels like a complete failure.

I wanted mystery, suspense, and intelligent storytelling - what I got was noise, violence, and disappointment.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Handmaid’s Tale – From Brilliant to Frustrating

  When The Handmaid’s Tale first aired, it felt sharp, terrifying, and painfully necessary. I wrote about the first season as a dark and brilliant adaptation, one that used restraint, symbolism, and dread to tell its story. Now that I've finished the third season, my opinion has shifted — not wholly, but noticeably. The show is still good . Sometimes very good. But it also became frustrating, uneven, and less powerful than it could have been. June Osborne: From Survivor to Exhaustion Let’s talk about June (Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men ). I understand the idea behind her arc. She was meant to evolve — to become more confident, more assertive, more dangerous. A woman shaped by trauma who stops surviving and starts fighting back. On paper, it makes sense. On screen, however, it often doesn’t work. June becomes reckless to the point of irresponsibility. She repeatedly puts others in danger without seeming to fully care about who might be caught in the crossfire. Her actions feel impuls...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grief in the Shadows: Why 'The Silencing' Stands Out

  A moody thriller about grief, violence, and how far we go for the ones we love. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ( Game of Thrones ) is Rayburn Swanson , a former hunter who now lives in isolation, running a wildlife sanctuary named after his missing daughter. Years after she vanished, Rayburn is just barely functioning—haunted, grieving, and clinging to the hope that she might still return. When a murdered girl turns up in the woods with eerie similarities to his daughter's disappearance, the local sheriff, Alice Gustafson ( Annabelle Wallis ), launches an investigation. Rayburn, meanwhile, accidentally crosses paths with a mysterious masked figure hunting a girl on his land. This encounter pulls him into the heart of the case in ways he never expected. The investigation twists, misleads, and slowly unravels, building toward a reveal that isn’t obvious—and intentionally so. Nothing is as straightforward as it seems. Themes of Grief and Family What makes The Silencing compelling is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gangsta Granny – Hilarious and Surprisingly Moving

  I have a ten-year-old daughter, and one thing we like to do is read the same books so we can talk about them afterward. Gangsta Granny was a birthday gift for her, and she read it so quickly that it immediately made me curious. When a child finishes a book that fast, you know something is working. When I finally read it myself, I was pleasantly surprised — and completely charmed. A Story That Is Funny and Moving At first glance, Gangsta Granny is a crazy, over-the-top, and very funny story. David Walliams clearly knows how to make children laugh, using absurd situations, exaggerated characters, and a fast-moving plot that keeps young readers hooked. But beneath the humour, the book is also sweet, touching, and emotionally rich. What starts as a wild adventure slowly reveals a story about family, loneliness, empathy, and learning to truly see the people around us. This balance reminded me of Roald Dahl’s books , where outrageous humour and emotional depth coexist effortles...
Post a Comment
Read more