I was reluctant to get into another series, but this one, with its dystopian promises and comic book origins just lured me in. And sure enough first episode was as bombastic and exciting and a good comic book story with all the action intrigue and high body count you can want…and then I noticed that this is a remake. Somehow I did not know that and I love British tv shows. Wtf, self. Anyway, uncharacteristically enough I decided to do some comparison based research and watched episode one of the British show. And then switched back to the American for one more episode. And then back to British and then stayed with British.
And here’s why…well, basically for all the glitz and production value of the American version, it is essentially a dumbed down easier to digest variant that is so prevalent in US adaptations. Outside of the fact that the show seems determined to resurrect John Cusack’s career from the Nicholas Cage presided made to DVD cheap thrillers abyss where once upon a time male stars go to fizzle out, you have a cast of underwhelmingly charismatic young and youngish nobodies. They get some aspects of their originals, but not the others. Nebishness without resolve or cuteness not backed by realism. Especially noticeable in Jessica’s representation, where Sasha Lane manages the feral look without the feral coiled dangerousness. The role Fiona O’Shaughnessy (whoever she is, Wikipedia doesn’t tell me much) has played to perfection through killer stare and weird angularity of her face to her tightly controlled animation and dynamics, Sasha Lane just seemed determined to kinda gutterpunk millennial through, with no age, experience or presence to back it up. And look, this is admittedly a limited comparison, I’m not yet done with BBC’s season 2 and I’ve only watched 2 episodes of the US version, but for now it seems very emblematic of US adaptations of British shows, stretched out, dumbed down, made shinier and louder and with easier to digest morals. The latter is important, Utopia is a profoundly moralistic show, divisively so. It contemplates the future and comes up with a terrifying solution and then spends the entire show on it. So you gotta be on board. And the other thing is…the original came out years ago and it is eerily prescient for 2020. The modern version was probably catered specifically to this sh*tty year. So originality kudos definitely go to the Brits. Also the theme song…very funky. BBC’s Utopia isn’t a perfect show by any means, some of the logistics are questionable, the timeline is definitely questionable as amply evidenced by the prequel episode (season 2 episode 1), the artwork isn’t as nice, etc. But it is definitely a superior version if only for being smarter and addressing their audience as such. Overall, I’m glad both Utopias exist, on only because the new one turned me onto the old one. But with both versions available on Prime, you can decide for yourself. After all, few things define modern age as much as options.
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