Utopia (UK TV series)
British television series
Utopia (2013–2014) is a British thriller-drama action television series, that aired on Channel 4, about a small group of people who find themselves in possession of the manuscript sequel of a cult graphic novel called The Utopia Experiments, which is rumored to have predicted the worst disasters of the last century. This leads them to be targeted by an organization known as The Network, which they must avoid to survive. Using the manuscript, they must uncover the meaning hidden in its pages before the disasters depicted become reality.
Season 1
editEpisode 1 [1.01]
edit- Arby: [recurring line] Where is Jessica Hyde?
- Wilson: Funny, seeing each other like this. I didn't expect you to be pretty, Becky.
- Becky: Thank you, Wilson. I think.
- Wilson: Ian, I didn't expect you to be...
- Ian: Tall?
- Wilson: No, black.
- Becky: What do you do?
- Ian: Well, think of the least interesting thing you could think of.
- Becky: IT. [Ian stares] Oh, no fucking way.
- Ian: Way fucking way. I also live with my mum.
- Becky: Jesus Christ, you're going to make me cry, Ian. What happened?
- Ian: I don't know. I really don't know.
- Wilson: [about The Utopia Experiments] Why you into it, then?
- Ian: Well, for the artwork. The stories, the sheer... imaginative vision. It's like opening a door into another world. Why diminish it by pretending it's real?
- Wilson: It's opening a door, all right, but what you don't realize is that it's opening a door... to reality.
- Ian: What does that even mean, Wilson?
- Wilson: I don't know, I'm a bit drunk.
- Lee: Most torturers tend to have their favorite areas of the body to work on. Genitals, teeth, soles of the feet. With me... it's the eyes. Chilies, sand, bleach. A spoon.
- Wilson: Is this about Utopia? I didn't even know Bejan.
- Lee: I'm going to rub chilies into your eyes. Then sand. Then bleach. Then I'm going to use the spoon. Do you know what I do with the spoon?
Episode 2 [1.02]
edit- Jessica: Ian, you won't be able to shoot me.
- Ian: Yeah? Don't imagine I won't, Jess.
- Jessica: No, really, you won't be able to shoot me. You've got the safety catch on. [Ian looks at it, Jessica yanks it away] They don't generally have safety catches. Except on telly.
- Ian: [as Jessica steals a car] Is this your car?
- Jessica: You're so cute.
- Jessica: Let me make this very clear. Your lives as you know them are over. What the next 48 hours are about is abandoning everything you know or thought you could rely on and adjusting to the new reality. If you can adjust you will live. If you can't, you will die.
- Ian: He's on our side, isn't he?
- Jessica: There are no sides. Just people who help you and people who don't.
- Wilson: Bloody hell, you sound about 10.
- Becky: Close. He's 11.
- Wilson: What? Really? You said that you owned a Porsche and that your girlfriend was a super-model.
- Grant: Yeah, I've got ambitions.
Episode 3 [1.03]
edit- Becky: Right. Shall we wait for Jessica?
- Wilson: What for? I can break in.
- Grant: Yeah? Well I can break in, as well.
- Becky: Jesus Christ. Am I the only one who can't break into houses?
- Wilson: I'll teach you if you want.
- Ian: Wilson, I work with computers, I know what I'm...
- Wilson: You're an IT consultant, Ian. If I want to know how to make a printer work, I'll let you know.
- Ian: All right, I'll tell you what. I'll say it. I like you. There. I said it, it's out. So now you can punch me, or give me a Chinese burn, or just--just kick me in my balls.
- Becky: I reckon you'd like that.
- Ian: What difference does it make who Mr. Rabbit is?
- Milner: There's a story about how he got his name. He was in bed with a criminal underworld in Kwang Dong. But he was playing everyone off against each other. The Russians, CIA, the gangs. So the Americans got fed up, and they let a particularly nasty crime boss know that he was their man. The boss found him, dragged him off the street--right through the middle of a busy office block. They tortured him, and as a lesson to others, the boss carved his own name into this man's stomach. "Rabbit." Ever seen the Chinese character for "rabbit," Ian? Lots of lines, lots of cuts. Somehow he managed to get free and, despite being unarmed, he killed everyone in that room. Then he went back through the office block and killed everyone who'd seen him. By the time he was finished, 265 people on three continents had lost their lives and not a single living person knew his identity. That's who Mr. Rabbit is. He is the beating heart of all this. And if we can find his identity, it ends and you go home.
- Geoff: Michael, if you work with me, there's a really good chance that I can make your life wonderful. But if you work against me just one more time, I will make your life over.
Episode 4 [1.04]
edit- Donaldson: All I know is within the next few weeks, I was embroiled in a sex scandal. Professor Pervert, addicted to coke and prostitutes.
- Michael: Did--did they just set you up?
- Donaldson: Yeah! Well, no, I do like cocaine and prostitutes. But they didn't have to tell anyone.
- Becky: Well this is nice. Better than drunk shagging and angry shagging.
- Ian: Yeah. The shagging was nice.
- Becky: Problem for you, though, is how are you going to get in my knickers without me being drunk or angry?
- Ian: Well, I could try telling you that I like you. That I think a lot about your lips, your eyes, your smile. I could tell you that I know you're in the room even before I've seen you. And I could tell you that despite all this madness, murder, mayhem... there's a corner of my soul that feels like I'm coming alive because of you.
- Becky: Yeah, well that might do it.
- Milner: You lost the manuscript.
- Ian: How do you know?
- Milner: I'm a spy. It's sort of the point of what I do.
- Becky: So she kissed you. On the mouth. Did you kiss her back?
- Ian: She held a gun to my head.
- Becky: Do you enjoy it? Well, I suppose she's attractive. In a skinny bitch evil murderess kind of way.
Episode 5 [1.05]
edit- Letts: You know the person who had the greatest positive impact on the environment of this planet? Genghis Khan, because he massacred 40 million people. There was no one to farm the land, forests grew back, carbon was dragged out of the atmosphere. And had this monster not existed, there'd be another billion of us today, jostling for space on this dying planet.
- Arby: It's not easy, is it? Growing up without a childhood. I was brought up in an institution. My room was a cell, really. There was an air vent there. I drew pictures around it, faces to keep the Devil out. I was told I'm like this 'cause of early trauma. I disconnected. A beneficial side effect, I suppose.
- Jessica: I know this place.
- Arby: It was me. I killed Christos. I tied him to that tree. I broke arms and fingers, tore the skin from his body. And in the end, I opened his stomach, reached inside, and pulled out what was in my hand. I was 15 years old. But he didn't say one word. Didn't speak. Didn't say where you were. That's how much he loved you. I wanted you to know that you were loved, because I wasn't.
Episode 6 [1.06]
edit- Jessica: Where did he put them? I want those pages and I want...
- Becky: I know! You want Mr. Rabbit. But going off and killing him isn't going to make your father any less of a cock than he was!
- Jessica: You psychoanalyzing me, Becky? We best pals now? You want to wear my lipstick?
- Becky: Shit. You're wearing makeup.
- Jessica: We'll be outside. That's not to leave this room.
- Becky: Could say please.
- Jessica: Please, Becky, don't take the manuscript out of this room or I will rip your fucking head off.
- Ian: Then you make him disable all relays. Okay?
- Michael: And then... what if he doesn't do what I say?
- Ian: Hit him with the gun.
- Michael: What, like, the fat end?
- Ian: Yeah. The fat end.
Season 2
editEpisode 1 [2.01]
edit- Phillip: Besides, there are three thousand five hundred species of mosquito. They've been around for a hundred million years. You think you can just yank them out of existence? I mean, you do realize half the birds in the Arctic tundra will starve to death. I mean, you have actually thought of that, or are you fucking idiots?
- Scientist: And how would you cure malaria?
- Phillip: Cure malaria? Why do you want to cure malaria? Malaria is doing a great job, leave malaria alone.
- Scientist: Young man, you are drunk.
- Phillip: Yes, I am. And in the morning we'll both still be cunts.
- Milner: What's wrong with curing malaria? Well wouldn't you want to make the world a better place?
- Phillip: Let me explain something to you. The sun throws a certain amount of energy onto this planet. We turn it into food, clothing, shelter, etc. It supports an amount of us, and it took 30,000 years for that amount to become one billion. Then we found a way to use ancient sunlight, sunlight trapped in oil and coal. We started to live off that. What happened? In just 130 years, our population doubled. The next billion took thirty years. The fourth billion has taken just 14. So here's the question. What do you think is going to happen when that oil and coal runs out in, say, a hundred years? When there's ten billion living on a planet that can support only one?
- Milner: I think we're going to tear each other apart.
- Phillip: At last, someone with an ounce of fucking brain. Malaria? The only disease that needs curing is us.
- Phillip: There are certain genetic traits that are undeniably advantageous. Now I believe I've isolated a group of people who are genetically stronger...
- The Assistant: A group? Do you mean a race?
- Phillip: "Race" is not a term that scientists recognize, but yes, if you must, then race.
- The Assistant: That's the Third fucking Reich.
- Phillip: It's the opposite of that. I'm not talking about murder, I'm talking about allowing some to continue. A world without race. It's a race without racial fucking genocide!
- Mr Omida: Torture is communication. So what I will do is I will inflict torture upon your person. Then I'll go inflict the same torture on Jessica. It will be exactly the same. Not diminished. What you feel, she will feel. Exactly. You will imagine her screams, her tears, her begging. I will go back and forth this way for a period of several hours, and... if that doesn't work, then we'll start all over again. With you in front of her. Now, propriety requires me to ask you if you would simply like to give us Janus now?
- Mr Omida: Always with my first torture I like to start with something brutal and traditional. I'm simply going to pull out the fingernails on your right hand.
Episode 2 [2.02]
edit- Ian: Do you think it's actually possible to die of boredom? Because I was just going to staple my own tongue. That's how bored I am. I was going to staple my own fucking tongue in the hope that pain would give me some reprieve from the tedium of IT.
- Joe: Do you want to talk about it, buddy?
- Ian: No. No.
- Joe: Because self-harm is a key indicator...
- Ian: It's not self-harm, okay, Joe? Doing this job is self-harm.
- Lee: I know it's hard but... I brush my teeth obsessively. Like the things we did are caught in me. In my mouth or... what about you?
- Arby: No, I just brush the normal amount.
- Milner: What do you see when you see me?
- Wilson: I see... someone who's killed thousands. Who murders, tortures, executes innocent children without hesitation. That's what I see.
- Milner: And do you think I wanted that? Do you think I wanted to be Mr. Rabbit? You're capable of more than you know, Wilson, believe me.
- Donaldson: I've got this.
- Becky: Where did you get that?
- Tony Bradley: Christian, is that you?
- Becky: What have you got a gun for?
- Donaldson: It's for shooting people.
- Tony Bradley: Are you two together?
- Becky: Oh, fuck no.
- Becky: What the fuck are you doing here?
- Ian: I--I've come to find you.
- Becky: Why?
- Ian: What do you mean, why?
- Becky: I mean, why have you come to find me?
- Ian: Why do you think?
- Becky: I don't know. That's why I'm fucking asking you.
- Ian: Jesus, this is not at all going how I imagined it would.
Episode 3 [2.03]
edit- Ian: I missed you. I fucking missed you. I used to check CCTV feeds. Missing persons. I'd walk out the office int he middle of a meeting just in case you happened to be passing. Every second I missed you. And what do you say when you see me? "What the fuck do you want?"
- Becky: Right, well, when you put it like that...
- Becky: I can't explain that. All right--all right, I can explain it. I slept with him. Once. I just found out I had Deel's, he knew all about it, I was on a very low ebb. It--it will never happen again. And just thinking about it makes me want a vagina transplant, so I'm just fucking telling you, all right?
- Lee: Oh, look. It's that one-eyed freak who shot me in my lung.
- Wilson: Yeah, well, you put my eye out.
- Lee: Just doing my job. Besides, you got a nice new pirate-y look out of it. All I got was partial paralysis.
- Lee: What I like about you, Wilson is the amount of stuff you know, all of it fucking useless.
- Wilson: Knowledge is never useless.
- Lee: Wasn't much use when I got my spoon out, was it? Or when I killed your dad.
- Lee: It's not that you can't take life. I reckon you could take billions. But it would have to be necessary. Killing me just isn't necessary.
Episode 4 [2.04]
edit- Becky: You called Milner.
- Ian: It was a mistake.
- Becky: Was it? Was it, Ian? Are you that fucking stupid? Or... are you actually quite fucking smart.
- Ian: Your insults are getting increasingly cryptic, what the hell are you saying?
- Michael: Do you mind if we talk about you breaking in with a knife, and not my eggs?
- Michael: I am not with them.
- Jessica: Michael, don't worry. If I thought you were with them, you'd be dead.
- Marius: You racist bastard. You think all Romis from Romania. Is not. Romi many places. Bulgaria, Poland, Spain. Romani different language, like... Welsh to English. You speaking fucking Welsh?
- Becky: Yeah, I do, actually.
- Marius: Doesn't matter.
- Becky: But...
- Marius: You still racist.
- Marius: What's going on?
- Grant: Becky found a way to speak to Anton. Through twatface.
- Marius: Is twatface me?
Episode 5 [2.05]
edit- Becky: Ian, what are you doing?
- Ian: I'm getting Grant back.
- Becky: What? Are you trying to find a weapon? Is that it?
- Ian: Right.
- Becky: Well, that's a curtain pole, Ian. You've got a curtain pole.
- Milner: Are you asking me, "Am I a killer", Michael? Yes, I am. I didn't want to be. It's just the way it turned out. Like Churchill or Lincoln.
- Michael: Or Hitler.
- Jessica: Look, find out where they have them. Take a mobile, the GPS.
- Michael: They search me. They fucking search me. How do I get a phone in there?
- Jessica: Shove it up your arse. No, I'm serious. You have to shove it up your arse. It's the only way. Don't use a big one.
- Jessica: If he moves, shoot him.
- Arby: We're family. There's no need for that.
- Jessica: Aim for his chest.
- Becky: You get out that way and you avoid all the security. I'll be waiting and if no one kills us, then I think we should be fine.
Episode 6 [2.06]
edit- Becky: Oh, and don't start calling them "The Three," okay? It's not Lord of the Fucking Rings and you're not a hobbit or a fucking space goblin, right?
- Wilson: How could you do that? How could you shoot at people you love?
- Anton: World's full of love. Billions of people loving billions of others. All that love will turn to dust when our resources die. I've seen what people are capable of when they feel they're losing everything. Look around.
- Jessica: He's going to release the virus now.
- Leah: It would appear so, dear.
- Jessica: Call me "dear" again and I'll cut your face off.
- Michael: Wilson, trust me, listen. Don't--don't do this. Please. This is not you.
- Wilson: No. I don't think I am me. Not any more.
- Jessica: Are you scared, Becky?
- Becky: Yeah. Sort of terrified. But I know it's what I want.
- Jessica: And you think this is right? For him, I mean? Have you ever looked into the eyes of someone you love who's dying? It's not something that leaves you.
Cast
edit- Fiona O'Shaughnessy - Jessica Hyde
- Alexandra Roach - Becky
- Nathan Stewart-Jarrett - Ian Johnson
- Adeel Akhtar - Wilson Wilson
- Oliver Woollford - Grant Leetham
- Paul Higgins - Michael Dugdale
- Neil Maskell - Arby
- Geraldine James - Milner
- Kevin Trainor - Mr. Omida
- Ian McDiarmid - Anton/Phillip Carvel
- Ruth Gemmell - Jen Dugdale
- Emilia Jones - Alice Ward
- Alistair Petrie - Geoff Lawson
- Paul Ready - Lee
- Simon McBurney - Christina Donaldson (season 1)
- Michael Maloney - Christian Donaldson (season 2)
- James Fox - The Assistant
- Stephen Rea - Conran Letts
- Anna Madeley - Anya Levchenko
- Sylvestra Le Touzel - Leah Gorsand
External links
edit- Utopia quotes at the Internet Movie Database
- Utopia at TV.com
- Utopia Official site