Nominations open in a few days, which is plenty of time for you to shill your favorite canon and lure people into your fandom. Feel free to use the comments on this post to tell everyone why your canon is the best!
What is it? A TV show that aired on UK Channel 4 starting in 2013. There are two series, six episodes each.
What's it about? A group of strangers meet on a forum for fans of an obscure comic book and then find themselves pursued by relentless assassins. A mysterious woman comes to their aid, but her private agenda may be almost as terrifying as what she's protecting them from. Meanwhile, a bumbling civil servant (played by Jamie Mcdonald from The Thick of It, which is hilarious) is blackmailed into the sinuous web of an shady pharmaceutical company. Vestiges of Cold War biowarfare development programs may be pulling strings inside world governments, causing many problems for the protagonists. Hanging over everything is the backdrop of impending global food shortages. And that's just the first two episodes! It all just gets worse from there.
Why you'll love it: First off, the original soundtrack is the best I've ever come across on TV. Have a listen to some tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrenNlr1Wzo&t=3820s (Warning: that link goes to music from the second series. The soundtrack clips from the first series include some spoilerific dialogue, so don't go clicking related videos unless you're prepared!)
Do any of the following appeal to you: global conspiracies revolving around hidden messages embedded in graphic novels? Ragtag groups of people forced into tenuous alliances with each other out of necessity? Meditations on personal morality in times of global crisis? Screwed up family dynamics? Sci-fi thrillers set in the real world? Cold war spy hijinks? Loyalty kink and identity shenanigans? Hyper-competent women? Nathan Stewart-Jarrett being beautiful and morally compromised? Rose Leslie being beautiful and terrifying (see icon)? If you answered "yes" to any of the above, consider watching Utopia!
In terms of style, I'd describe it as Black Mirror meets Tarantino with sides of the IT Crowd and Watchmen. There's sexy scarification! Black comedy involving severed fingers! Really beautiful, colourful audio-visual design! What more could you ask for?
It can be binge-watched in a day if you feel inclined. It was, unfortunately, cancelled two series into a planned four-series arc, but the second season finale wraps up many character arcs in a satisfying way, IMO, while also leaving lots of jumping-off points for fic writers to play around with. The rewatch value is very high.
Caveat: It's hard to pitch this show because it's both thematically bleak and full of (very) graphic violence. For what it's worth, the series premiere is probably the most concentrated in its depiction of violence, so if you can get through that you can probably make it through the rest. If you're at all interested, please try it out!
It's unfortunately pretty hard to get ahold of legally outside of the UK. I know you can stream it on Netflix in some EU countries. You can also find downloads/streams... around. If you get my drift.
I'm curious about this, but would it be possible to get more information on the worst instances of violence, please? (Personally I'd want to skip anything with severed fingers, especially if the severing happens on-screen, and any similar hand trauma, threatened or carried out.)
For sure! I actually compiled a list of every major trigger warning per episode, with timestamps, back when I was more organized in my fandom evangelism attempts, but I think I lost the file. Much regret.
Some notable ones: - The first scene of the first episode involves several people getting murdered via gas suffocation, one of whom is a child. The child's death is implied/offscreen. - About 2/3 the way through the same episode is a torture scene involving eye trauma; it's a couple minutes long and you can fast-forward through it or just look away from the screen, as the important information from it is discussed by characters later. - Someone walks in front of a truck in the opening of S1E2; it's clear what's happening but it's not particularly graphic. - There's an elementary school shooting at the beginning of S1E3. It's semi-onscreen (you can kind of hear what's going on but the camera doesn't follow it). - Near the end of S1E3 a character is blackmailed with the threat of sexual violence towards his wife if he doesn't behave; however, nothing comes of it and the wife never finds out. IIRC there's no other instances of sexual assault in the show besides a brief nonconsensual kiss (involving different characters than these ones). - There are two hand trauma sequences I can remember. The one with the severed fingers is in S1E3 and actually involves a dead body, so it's mostly just gross. You see someone cut off fingers from a corpse and carry them around in a bag for a bit. The other instance is a brief onscreen torture scene near the end of S2E1 that involves fingernail removal (and is supposed to parallel the torture scene in the pilot). - Past and potential future genocide is a major part of the plot.
The frequency and intensity of the violence drops off as the show progresses. For what it's worth, I think there are plot reasons things play out the way they do beyond just shock value (though that's part of it). Cycles of violence and trauma, especially childhood trauma, are A Theme. The show is also generally a riff on dark-n-edgy comic books, so the OTT violence is part of the aesthetic in the same way the overly saturated colours are.
Thanks - that's really detailed and helpful! I think that bracing would be sufficient for me for all of those instances except the onscreen torture scene in S2E1. Do you recall, in that episode, if it's very clear when that's coming up and when it's over? (Otherwise I could possibly get someone to watch it for me and give me timestamps.)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
What is it? A TV show that aired on UK Channel 4 starting in 2013. There are two series, six episodes each.
What's it about? A group of strangers meet on a forum for fans of an obscure comic book and then find themselves pursued by relentless assassins. A mysterious woman comes to their aid, but her private agenda may be almost as terrifying as what she's protecting them from. Meanwhile, a bumbling civil servant (played by Jamie Mcdonald from The Thick of It, which is hilarious) is blackmailed into the sinuous web of an shady pharmaceutical company. Vestiges of Cold War biowarfare development programs may be pulling strings inside world governments, causing many problems for the protagonists. Hanging over everything is the backdrop of impending global food shortages. And that's just the first two episodes! It all just gets worse from there.
Why you'll love it: First off, the original soundtrack is the best I've ever come across on TV. Have a listen to some tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrenNlr1Wzo&t=3820s (Warning: that link goes to music from the second series. The soundtrack clips from the first series include some spoilerific dialogue, so don't go clicking related videos unless you're prepared!)
Do any of the following appeal to you: global conspiracies revolving around hidden messages embedded in graphic novels? Ragtag groups of people forced into tenuous alliances with each other out of necessity? Meditations on personal morality in times of global crisis? Screwed up family dynamics? Sci-fi thrillers set in the real world? Cold war spy hijinks? Loyalty kink and identity shenanigans? Hyper-competent women? Nathan Stewart-Jarrett being beautiful and morally compromised? Rose Leslie being beautiful and terrifying (see icon)? If you answered "yes" to any of the above, consider watching Utopia!
In terms of style, I'd describe it as Black Mirror meets Tarantino with sides of the IT Crowd and Watchmen. There's sexy scarification! Black comedy involving severed fingers! Really beautiful, colourful audio-visual design! What more could you ask for?
It can be binge-watched in a day if you feel inclined. It was, unfortunately, cancelled two series into a planned four-series arc, but the second season finale wraps up many character arcs in a satisfying way, IMO, while also leaving lots of jumping-off points for fic writers to play around with. The rewatch value is very high.
Caveat: It's hard to pitch this show because it's both thematically bleak and full of (very) graphic violence. For what it's worth, the series premiere is probably the most concentrated in its depiction of violence, so if you can get through that you can probably make it through the rest. If you're at all interested, please try it out!
It's unfortunately pretty hard to get ahold of legally outside of the UK. I know you can stream it on Netflix in some EU countries. You can also find downloads/streams... around. If you get my drift.
no subject
no subject
Some notable ones:
- The first scene of the first episode involves several people getting murdered via gas suffocation, one of whom is a child. The child's death is implied/offscreen.
- About 2/3 the way through the same episode is a torture scene involving eye trauma; it's a couple minutes long and you can fast-forward through it or just look away from the screen, as the important information from it is discussed by characters later.
- Someone walks in front of a truck in the opening of S1E2; it's clear what's happening but it's not particularly graphic.
- There's an elementary school shooting at the beginning of S1E3. It's semi-onscreen (you can kind of hear what's going on but the camera doesn't follow it).
- Near the end of S1E3 a character is blackmailed with the threat of sexual violence towards his wife if he doesn't behave; however, nothing comes of it and the wife never finds out. IIRC there's no other instances of sexual assault in the show besides a brief nonconsensual kiss (involving different characters than these ones).
- There are two hand trauma sequences I can remember. The one with the severed fingers is in S1E3 and actually involves a dead body, so it's mostly just gross. You see someone cut off fingers from a corpse and carry them around in a bag for a bit. The other instance is a brief onscreen torture scene near the end of S2E1 that involves fingernail removal (and is supposed to parallel the torture scene in the pilot).
- Past and potential future genocide is a major part of the plot.
The frequency and intensity of the violence drops off as the show progresses. For what it's worth, I think there are plot reasons things play out the way they do beyond just shock value (though that's part of it). Cycles of violence and trauma, especially childhood trauma, are A Theme. The show is also generally a riff on dark-n-edgy comic books, so the OTT violence is part of the aesthetic in the same way the overly saturated colours are.
no subject
no subject
no subject