Is prematurely-cancelled British thriller "Utopia" still worth watching?

July 19, 2015 8:39 PM

I saw the first episode last night and liked it very much. But I read that the show was very prematurely cancelled after two seasons and the creators were denied the chance to finish the story in a two-hour special. Is the show such that it's still worth investing the time in the two existing series? Or is this a recipe for frustration?
posted by eugenen to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

Definitely worth watching, I haven't seen a show like it before and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
posted by lunastellasol at 9:01 PM on July 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Absolutely worth it, I've only seen the first series and it works perfectly as a story that ends there. It's fantastic telly, to the extent that I'm nervous to watch the second series because I don't see how it could possibly be as good
posted by coleboptera at 9:23 PM on July 19, 2015

Yes. Second season not as good as the first but still worth it.

Perhaps over-optimistically, I'm really looking forward to the American version as well.
posted by supercres at 9:27 PM on July 19, 2015

Definitely worth watching. I think the second season totally holds up.
posted by pompomtom at 9:33 PM on July 19, 2015

Yes, worth investing. I love Utopia to pieces and push it at everyone, so my answer is biased, but! I think it's worth it. I found it satisfying despite the fact that it ends with some inconclusive threads and some questions without answers. Some major character arcs end in interesting, emotionally conclusive places, and the major plot of each series gets wrapped up in each series finale.

But that doesn't keep me wishing they had a third series or that two-hour special, though.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 9:33 PM on July 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yes. I greatly preferred the first season to the second, although the latter is probably worth watching. You can read a (spoilery!) discussion on fanfare.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 11:55 PM on July 19, 2015

It's visually exuberant, brilliantly twisty, utterly merciless and viciously funny. World-spanning cult phenomena have been built on far weaker material than this (*cough*Firefly*cough*). And for those knocking the second season, "EAT MY FUCKING CHIP!"
posted by prismatic7 at 3:30 AM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

As a note, British television (though I'm not positive about Channel 4) is usually ordered one series at a time, so if done well should reach a stopping point at the end of each series, since the creators won't know if there will be another.
posted by hoyland at 4:04 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Honestly, by the end of the second series I felt like the mythology was getting nonsensical as it got more complicated. So I enjoyed the two series but was not all that sad that there would be no third.
posted by mskyle at 6:16 AM on July 20, 2015

Series one and two? Yes, definitely worth watching.
posted by Mister Bijou at 7:34 AM on July 20, 2015