Utopia….to be continued…

Utopia will have conspiracy theorists losing more sleep than usual! (if you haven’t heard of Agenda 21 you soon will).  Joining dots is (as far as I can tell) a conspiracy theorist’s favourite pastime. Dennis Kelly’s tightly plotted story does that in spades, and does it with gusto and gleefully black humour. A tour de force.

So. I loved It. I struggled to review this on a weekly basis, but the disappointing truth about that is a) I am sometimes lazy, or even more prosaic, simply need to turn in at 11pm, and not stay up till midnight writing a review of something I’ve just really enjoyed watching, and b) I’m selfish. And really b) is entirely related to a) in as much as I found I simply didn’t want to dissect something that I’d just really relished watching. I wanted to savour it and hoard the feelings of excitement and anticipation for next week’s episode, and let my willing submission of self into the story-world linger and fade at its own pace.

This is, for me, the marker of a really good bit of TV/film making/story telling in whatever genre you care to mention. I was all audience, and I stayed that way till the end of the series. Whatever else I may have to say, this is the one thing that matters – to me, to the makers, and to the broadcasters.

So…greedy for more then? Well, yes…and no. Perhaps it’s just me, but I couldn’t help feeling just a touch disappointed with the ‘to be continued…’ ending when it happened. While this makes perfect sense – after all, what broadcaster or writer or film-maker would not want to build in the prospect of more work, with an eager audience waiting for it to arrive? And it sits perfectly with the themes and the framing of the story so far presented (a ton of back-story…maybe a prequel is in the pipeline too?), I can’t help feeling it would have been even more enjoyable if they’d found a way to tie the story up. Not an easy task at the best of times, ask any writer. And, arguably, they sort of have, with the solution to the central mystery residing all along in the blood of Jessica Hyde. As a writer, I have to admire this – the Janus molecule is there, the manuscript was a macguffin (come next series I’d bet good money that it will be revived, with some clever plot twisting antidote ‘hidden’ in it. But Jessica burned it you cry! It’s gone! hmmm…) and now this dangerous thing is in the wrong hands…duh duh duuuuh…..

Oh dear. I’m not really disappointed am I? I’m just jealous and wish that I had the creativity and skill to pull off something this clever and this much fun that could run and run and run. Looks to me like British TV is fast catching up with the US and stuff like The Wire, Breaking Bad, and any other of a slew of brilliant crafted TV dramas of every stripe, made with high production values and a respect for the intelligence of the TV watching public. And I can hardly wait for the next series.